Survey Question Design

Focus on specific objectives related to your questions. Ask yourself how you would react if you encountered low scores for each individual question you include on your survey. What action would that lead you to take?

Narrow the scope of your questions to actionable items. By doing this, you will gather a greater amount of important information.

Every question takes up space on the survey, so make sure you’re asking valuable questions. Keep in mind that employee surveys are typically longer than customer and market research surveys.

Survey questions that focus on both will bring you the best results. With ClearPath Analytics, we can understand how specific items impact the data.

Demographics allow you to cluster your data into reports for better understanding.

Some examples of demographic information include:

• Employee characteristics like tenure, age, gender, performance appraisal rating, pay grade, managerial status, department, and employment status (i.e., part-time, full-time)
• Customer characteristics like zip code, age group, gender, income, average spend, or how often they use your service or goods

By following these principles of survey research, you will ensure a successful survey experience. If you choose to work with NBRI, you’ll work with an organizational psychologist who has guided others through this process countless times. Select your questions — and your research partner — wisely!

Along with the five principles above, pay attention to the language used in each survey question. Avoid questions that are polarizing, double-barreled, ambiguous, wordy, mini-messages, or negatively phrased. Mindful wording will ensure the most helpful data.