Questions to Consider When Writing a Survey
Thinking about when to use open vs. closed questions:
• Do the advantages of using open questions out way the disadvantages?
o Advantages
o Respondents are not limited to a set of responses and are free to say whatever
comes to mind which could give you richer responses.
o Easier to write because you don’t have to include appropriate answer choices
o disadvantages
o Responding takes more effort (thought and time) on the part of respondent to
complete and as a result you may get a large amount of short responses and/or no
responses.
o It can be difficult to summarize the data.
• Do the advantages of using closed questions out way the disadvantages?
o Advantages
▪ Easier for respondents to complete and to analyze the resulting responses.
o Disadvantages
▪ Can be difficult to write because need to include all relevant answer choices
▪ Responses are not as rich or insightful because respondents are not using their
own words
Thinking about Utts’ 7 Pitfalls when writing your survey:
• Deliberate bias o Did you use “do you agree” in your questions?
o Does the wording of the questions allude to a desired answer?
• Unintentional bias
o Are you sure respondents will interpret the questions as you intended?
• Desire to please
o Are your questions likely to elicit socially desirable responses? (Are parents likely
to be honest when answering questions related to their child’s bad behavior?)
• Asking the uninformed
o What are the respondents’ level of understanding and familiarity with the thing/concept
you are asking about? (Are parent even aware that a new behavior program has been
implemented? Are parents’ ideas of positive and negative behaviors consistent with how they
are defined in the program?)
• Unnecessary complexity
o Are the questions clear and straight forward to answer?
• Ordering of questions
o Do you think that changing the ordering of the questions might influences how
respondents answer the questions?
• Confidentially vs. anonymity
o What are the potential benefits of being able to connect respondents’ names with their
actual answers? What are the potential negative effects of this?
o Is it clear to participants that their responses will be either anonymous or confidential?
o Even if you say responses will be anonymous, would you be able to figure out the
identity of respondent by looking at their responses to other questions on the survey?
o If you state on the survey that responses will be either confidential or anonymous, do
respondents truly understand what that means?
Other things to consider
• Did you include a title for your survey? (Sometimes parents disregard papers if they
can’t quickly figure out what they are for.)
• Are the directions on how to complete the survey and how and when to return
completed survey’s clearly stated?
• Do respondents clearly understand the reason you are asking them to complete the
survey? (The better understand respondents have about why they are being asked to
complete a survey the more likely they are to complete it)
• Do respondents know what the results will be used for and by whom? (Respondents
should have a clear understanding of how their responses will be used and who will use
them.)
• Will the questions you have include on your survey really give you the information
you are looking for?
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