On the art of formulating good questions

More and more frequently, people feel called upon to design questionnaires themselves. This often results in visitors to these websites being confronted with unprofessional survey content - not to mention the fact that the evaluation of these questions offers added value.

It happens more and more often: pop ups on websites, with the invitation to participate in a survey. We look at these surveys again and again, simply because we have been working in this field for many years. We notice that the trend is increasingly moving in the same direction as can be observed with social media: It seems that just anyone and everyone feels called to be a specialist, in this case for survey design.

Shit in – shit out

It would probably not occur to anyone to install a gas connection themselves or to calculate the statics of a house themselves if they have no idea about it. Surveys are different: here, more and more people feel called upon to design questionnaires themselves, where you can see right from the first questions how amateurish some of these "concept designers" are. The result is that visitors to these websites are confronted with unprofessional survey content - not to mention that the evaluation of these questions offers added value. Moreover, such an amateurishly designed survey does not help to improve the reputation, on the contrary.

Of course, today's do it yourself platforms make it much easier than it used to be to put together a questionnaire yourself. However, what is often forgotten is that it is not primarily about creating a questionnaire. That's at the end - once you've defined the objectives of the survey and the target audience you have in mind. In recent times, the impression is increasingly created that one does not (any longer) approach such a survey thinking from the end (= from the results), but rather thinks up «funny» questions, which then find their place in the questionnaire rather arbitrarily and randomly.

Four survey mistakes to avoid

Good survey results require professionals who know which formulations, which scales and which evaluations are best suited to the objectives at hand. In the past, research institutes provided support in this area, but they are being commissioned less and less - probably for reasons of time and cost - to carry out a professionally conducted study.

If you want to set up a survey yourself, here are a few tips that you should pay attention to and take to heart if you want to get useful results from your surveys:

If possible, do not include double negatives in a questionnaire; this makes it much more difficult to understand.

It is also not advisable to include multiple questions in a question where the person answering does not know which of the questions is to be answered.

Long-winded sentences, in which you have forgotten at the end what was at the beginning and what the actual question is, are also not purposeful.

It is advisable to consider in advance which scales are to be used, as these are crucial to ensuring that insights are also gained during the evaluation.

Set up surveys easily - and still get valid results

However, there is another option: one makes use of the knowledge of professional and experienced researchers and «books» available, suitable and ready-to-use survey tools at the push of a button. With this, a survey can be set up with minimal effort in about 5 minutes and without having to bring along the necessary know how. This know-how is already incorporated into the platform, as is the case with deeptrue, for example.

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