Hi, again. So do you think your questionnaire is perfect now? Well, you still need to test it. The quality of the survey questions you write is essential. Therefore, you should plan to employ a quality control process. This means getting a test group of at least 5 to 10 respondents to answer your questionnaire. It is not only important to test getting responses, but also to enter the data. In this lesson, I'll show you how to perform quality control on your quantitative survey questions. After this lesson, you should be able to design questions that are clear unambiguous and unbiased. So let's dive in. So before you put pen to paper and start writing your questions, be sure to avoid these five common survey mistakes. One, don't write leading questions. Two, avoid loaded questions. Three, stay away from double-barreled questions. Four, absolutely do not use absolutes in questions. Five, be clear by speaking your respondents' language. It is essential that your questions are clear and easily understood by those you are serving. Be clear by speaking your respondents' language. Regardless of who's taking your survey, use clear, concise, and uncomplicated language while trying to avoid acronyms, technical terms, or jargon that may confuse your respondents. And make sure to provide definitions or examples if you need to include tricky terms or concepts. That way, you can be certain that almost anybody can answer your questions easily and that they'll be more inclined to complete your survey. Generally, you should strive to write questions using language that is easily understood. Certain sample groups, however, may have a knowledge base that can make the use of more difficult terms and ideas a viable option. Ask yourself if your respondents have a deep understanding of certain events, terms, and issues dealt with in the survey. The more you can focus on writing good questions as opposed to explaining things in common terms, the better. For example, if you're serving patients in a hospital, you'll want to avoid using medical jargon. However, if your survey sample is made up of doctors, it makes sense to use more specialized questions and use higher level medical vocabulary. By avoiding these five common survey writing mistakes, your survey should run like a well-oiled machine. Your data will be more accurate and your respondents will exit your survey feeling great because they've shared honest and accurate feedback. Triple win. So put your writing cap on and get to creating those questions. Stay away from double-barreled questions. Double-barreled questions force respondents to answer two questions at once rather than separate the questions into two distinct questions. Survey questions should always be written in a way that only one thing is being measured. If a single question has two subjects, it is impossible to tell how the respondent is weighing the different elements involved. Let me give you a picture of the importance of clarity by contrasting a bad example with a good one. A bad question. Do you own a tablet PC? A good question. Do you own a tablet PC e.g. iPad, Android, tablet? Bad question. What was the state of the cleanliness of the room? Good question. How clean was the room? So you can see how the bad question may be misleading to the respondent. Here are some examples of double-barreled question. Bad question. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the pay and work benefits of your current job? In the case of the example, it makes sense to break the question into two, satisfaction with pay and satisfaction with work benefits. Otherwise, some of the respondents will be answering the question while giving more weight to pay and others will answer the question by giving more weight to work benefits. A good question. How satisfied are you with the pay of your current job? Another question would be, how dissatisfied are you with the pay of your current job? It is also easy to double-barrel a question by giving more than one group for the respondent to consider. Bad question. How useful would this textbook be for students and young professionals in the field? Now, the respondent is forced to give a single answer for both parties. Instead, break the question into two, one measuring the usefulness for students and one measuring the usefulness for professionals. So the good question would be, how useful will this textbook be for students? And how useful will this textbook be for young professionals in the field? Avoid loaded questions. Sometimes questions will be written in a way that forces the respondent into an answer that doesn't accurately reflect their opinion or situation. This top survey mistake will throw off your survey respondents and is one of the leading contributors to respondents abandoning surveys. Let me contrast a bad example with a good one. The bad question, where do you enjoy drinking beer? By answering this question, the respondent is announcing that they drink beer. However, many people dislike beer or will not drink alcohol and therefore can't answer the question truthfully. Usually, loaded questions are best avoided by pre-testing your survey to make sure each respondent has a way to answer honestly. In this case of the example above, you may choose to ask a preliminary question on whether the respondent drinks beer and uses skip logic to let people who don't drink beer pass over the questions that don't apply to them. How to write survey questions like a pro? Need more survey questioning samples? We take you through how to write a great survey from start to finish so you can see. It is essential that your questions are unbiased and not leading. Your top survey mistake, number one, questions should never be worded in a way that swayed the reader to be one side of the argument. Usually, you can tell a question is leading if it includes non-neutral wording. You ensure your questions are unbiased by making sure that the sentence is objective and doesn't try to persuade or guide the respondent. Do not use absolutes in questions. Absolutes and questions force respondents into a corner where they can't give useful feedback. These questions usually have the options yes or no and include such wording as always, all, every, ever. A bad question. How short was Napoleon? The word short immediately brings images to the mind of the respondent. If the question is rewritten to be neutral sunny, it can eliminate this leading bias. Good question. How would you describe Napoleon's height? Leading questions can also be the cause of unnecessary additions to the question. So a bad question would be, should concerned parents use infant car seats? The term concerned parents leaves the respondent away from the topic at hand. Instead, stay focused by only including what is needed in the question. A good question. Do you think special car seats should be required for infant passengers? On absolutes, a bad question would be, do you always eat breakfast? Yes or no? Read literally, the example would force almost any respondent to answer no. Even then, there would be some respondents who would interpret the question as asking whether they always eat a full breakfast when they have a chance. The inflexibility of absolutes makes questions too rigid to be used in a survey instead the question should have a variety of options that people will feel more comfortable choosing from. A good question would be, how many days a week do you usually eat breakfast? Every day? Five to six days? Three to four days? One to two days? I usually don't eat breakfast. Now that you have completed this lesson, you should be able to design questions that are clear, unambiguous, and unbiased.
