Designing Quality Survey Questions Book - Leonard Research and Evaluation

Designing Quality Survey Questions – 2nd edition!

Surveys are a cornerstone of social and behavioral research. With the use of web-based tools, surveys have become an easy and inexpensive means of gathering data. But how researchers ask a question can dramatically influence the answers they receive.

Designing Quality Survey Questions, 2nd Ed. shows readers how to craft high quality, precisely-worded survey questions. This allows the elicitation of rich, nuanced, and ultimately useful data. Such data helps answer their research or evaluation questions. The authors address challenges such as language preferences for standard demographic questions (e.g. How to ask about gender), creative question design to keep respondents engaged and avoid survey fatigue, web-based survey formats, culturally-responsive survey design, and factors that influence survey responses (memory, social desirability, etc.). Numerous examples of questions illustrate each identified principle of question construction..

Purchase through Sage

Purchase through Amazon

What’s in the 2nd edition?

The Second Edition offers more detail about survey question design and includes more on rating scales and open-ended questions. It provides more guidance on cultural responsiveness and equity considerations including use of inclusive language, how to survey youth, and a deeper discussion on asking questions about sex and gender and disability.

The second edition still features design thinking as a central framework that helps researchers understand and empathize with potential respondents and to build and test survey prototypes before administering surveys. It also includes lots of direct guidance on potentially difficult aspects of survey writing, including crafting clear question stems and appropriate response options, working with sensitive question types, and understanding how question wording can influence response, address considerations for writing and administering surveys.

What else is in the book?

The second edition still includes a number of key features we loved from the first edition, including:

The Checklist for Quality Question Design: A comprehensive question design assessment tool that can be used to reflect on the quality of draft survey questions. It’s a handy summary of the guidance outlined in the text and intended to support students and practitioners alike as they compose surveys.
Stories From the Field provide even more real-world experiences for the reader collected from practitioners who share lessons learned about survey design.
Real-World Questions: Examples of poorly constructed questions and inappropriate or inadequate response options and scales culled from surveys we have taken over the years.
Mini-interviews with expert practitioners highlight key survey deisgn topics.
Design Details focus the reader on especially salient topics in the design process.
Design Drills exercises that challenge the reader and support application of the information included.
Discussion Questions designed for group discussion or individual reflection on the content included.
Extended Learning lists that suggest additional readings for further study.

“Three cheers for…”

The strong recommendation to only ask questions you have a clear plan to use, along with solid recommendations on what questions to cut or consolidate. Yes please! Don’t ask about my gender if you don’t need that information. And if you do, this book has thoughtfully addressed how to word survey questions related to sensitive topics like race, ethnicity, gender, income, and religion. We did not address this enough when I was in grad school.

The few times open-ended questions make sense and how to introduce them so people will actually fill them out. Whether to have a midpoint in your Likert scale (I’m team NO). How better questions can help us avoid a “don’t know” response. Clear, detailed, and realistic discussion of what respondents tend to think when presented with common survey issues. Survey design considerations for respondents who have low-vision or blindness. Fun ways to encourage responses.

And the narrative is accompanied by smile-worthy cartoons from the one and only, Chris Lysy, as well as adorable icons that make me jealous I didn’t have those in my book.

I’m cheering so hard because anyone who runs in the survey world needs to read and integrate this stuff and the other good ideas in this book.

-Stephanie Evergreen, review on Evergreen Data blog

Designing Quality Survey Questions – the book!