If you find your survey draft loaded up with open-ended questions, that’s a good sign that you need to pause and refine, in order to avoid the dreaded survey fatigue. Here are four steps to take in doing so:

Step 1: Revisit your survey purpose. 

Get crystal clear on what exactly you need to measure to answer your research or evaluation questions. You might find you can refine, prioritize or reframe questions. 

Or, you might find that you are headed down the wrong research path entirely – if you find yourself truly in need of mostly open-ended questions, focus groups, interviews, or another strategy might be a better choice. Just because surveys seem cheaper and easier does not mean they are the best option for collecting all kinds of information.

Step 2: Put yourself in your respondents’ shoes.

Here are some of the many possibilities of what happens when respondents encounter an open-ended survey question:

• They can’t come up with an answer right away
• They don’t feel they have the time to respond
• They can’t quite articulate what they want to say in sentences
• They don’t enjoy writing out their answers 
• The question feels too complex or overwhelming

“…respondents are often not willing (or able) to provide lengthy or detailed written answers in response to multiple open-ended questions. This happens for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is both the time it takes to organize one’s thoughts and to articulate them coherently in writing, along with the willingness to expose one’s writing ability to researchers” (Robinson & Leonard, 2018, p. 48).

Review your survey to clarify, simplify, or otherwise edit your questions to make them easier for respondent to answer. 

Step 3: Pre-test to determine whether some open-ended questions can become closed-ended.

If you have the time, budget and bandwidth, a focus group or short set of interviews (ideally with potential survey respondents or a similar population) can be immensely helpful in potentially shifting questions from open-ended to closed-ended. You may find that enough responses are similar, or fall into well-defined categories that your question can be converted to a closed-ended format. Piloting the survey with a small group, and asking them for feedback can also be well worth the investment of time and budget (consider compensating people for their time and feedback!). 

Step 4: Plan for analysis and use. 

Once you’ve determined which open-ended questions to keep in the survey, you need to turn your attention to analysis and use. Analyzing qualitative data from open-ended questions takes more time and a different skill set than quantitative data, and takes some additional planning.

• How will you work with the qualitative data and do you have the time to devote to analysis?
• Do you have an appropriate coding strategy you can apply to the data? 
• How are you going to use the information that will come in via those questions? 
• Do you plan to quantify the data for reporting?
• Are you fishing for confirmatory information, or feedback that you could potentially ask for in a different way? 

Considering these questions can help you further prioritize or eliminate open-ended questions. It may also help to identify where you need a closed-ended question – if your intended analysis plan really requires it.

Of course, open-ended questions still have great value, and can be important for capturing the information you need in ways that help your respondents feel heard.