Dr. G. Johnson, Writing Survey Questions Research Methods for Public Administrators Dr. Gail Johnson

Dr. G. Johnson, www.reseachdemystified.org

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Writing Survey Questions

Research Methods for Public Administrators

Dr. Gail Johnson


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Survey Options: Amount of Structure Structured

Close-ended questions

Semi-structured Open-ended questions


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Structured Questions

How satisfied or unsatisfied are you with the graduates of the teachers college? Very Unsatisfied <---- > Very Satisfied

How helpful or unhelpful have the agricultural consultants been in working with you in the past year? Very Unhelpful <------- > Very helpful

How useful, if at all, has the program evaluation workshop been in helping your evaluate your program? Of little usefulness <------- > Very Useful


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Semi-Structured Questions

What are the greatest assets you have observed in the MPA graduates?

What knowledge and skills should MPA graduates have for the 21st century?

What are the three things that you learned from the MPA program that you use most frequently?


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Structured vs Semi-structuredWhich to Choose? Structured, check-a-box questions are easier

for participants to complete and easier for researchers to analyze. But hard to develop and sometimes feels

impersonal. Unforgiving of mistakes: if you ask the wrong

question, use the wrong word or have a type or grammatical error on a written survey: there is no way to change it. You have to live with it.


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Structured vs Semi-structuredWhich to Choose? Semi-structured, open-ended questions are harder

for participants to complete because it takes much more time to write-in the answers. But they get to tell their story in their own words.

Harder for researchers to analyze because the English words can have many meanings But it may provide researchers with new insights: ideas

and views that had not considered


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Structured vs UnstructuredWhich to Choose? My advice:

If you have a lot of open-ended questions, better to interview in person than ask them to complete a self-administered survey.


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Writing Closed-Ended Survey Questions Harder than it might appear Takes more time that people think Requires an in-depth knowledge of the

topics to be covered Requires a comprehensive awareness of the

words that people are likely to use when talking about the topics


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Writing Closed-Ended Survey Questions “Every questionnaire, must finally be

handcrafted. It is not only that questionnaire writing must be ‘artful’; each questionnaire is also unique, an original.”

--Converse and Presser


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Close-ended: Check a Box

Single question with a response set: How frequently, if at all, have you visited

the community center in the last 3 months? Did not visit (0 times) 1-3 times 4-6 times 7-9 times 10 or more times


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Close-ended: Check a Box

Single question with a response set: Including all sources of income, what was your

gross household income last year? Less than $15,000 $15,000 to $25,000 $25,001 to $50,000 $50,0001 to $75,000 $75,001 to $100,000 $100,001 to $125,000 $125,001 to $150,000 Greater than $150,000


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Using Intensity Scales

Multiple-choice answers to survey questions are sometimes called response sets

Intensity scales are better than simple agree or disagree responses, better than simple yes or no responses

Intensity scales provide a way to gage the intensity of feeling: Distinguish between strong feelings from the

mediocre/whatever feeling


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One-Way Intensity Scale

One-Way Scale: tries to capture a single dimension (or construct) that goes from low to high with a meaningful middle category

Always or Almost Always Mostly About Half of the Time Occasionally Never or Almost Never


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Soften the Ends of the Scales

Soften the ends of the scales by phrasing “Always or Almost always” and “Never or Almost never”

You want to encourage people to use the full range of the scale It is rare for something to be absolutely never or always

I almost never watch TV but it would be untrue to say that I never watch TV

In my mind, I watch TV less than occasionally but that would be truer than saying never

Absolute ends limits the usefulness of using a scale


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A Goldilocks Intensity Scale

Would you say the amount of elective courses offered are too many, too few or about right?

Much too many Somewhat too many About right Somewhat too few Much too few


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A Goldilocks Intensity Scale

“About right” is meaningful information—if fact, the program director would want to see a majority of students reporting that the number of elective courses are “about right”


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Intensity Scales with a Neutral Middle Likert Scale

Strongly Agree Agree Neither Agree or Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree


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Intensity Scales with a Neutral Middle Effectiveness/Ineffectiveness Scale

Very Effective Generally Effective Neither Effective Or Ineffective Generally Ineffective Very Ineffective


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Survey: Intensity Scales

Yes/No Intensity Scale Definitely Yes Probably Yes Neither Yes or No Probably No Definitely No


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Exits: No Opinion, Not Applicable, Don’t Know Questionnaires/survey instruments are

designed for everyone to answer But sometimes people are asked questions

that they cannot answer because the question does not apply or they truly have no opinion


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Exits: No Opinion, Not Applicable, Don’t Know For example, all MPA students might be

asked about the quality of elective courses but some may have not yet taken any

You do not not want them offering an opinion


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Exits: No Opinion, Not Applicable, Don’t Know So, you add an exit: “no opinion, or not

applicable, or don’t know” to the response set

Do not ever delude yourself into thinking you can force people to answer your question if you do not give them an exit Remember, their participation is always

voluntary!!


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Why Exits are Needed

The middle category conceptually is trying to capture an opinion.

A person may not really care, one way or another, if the MPA program decides to change its name. The person is indifferent but that is still an opinion

The exit allows the person to say I have no information about the proposed name change to have an opinion. They are not indifferent.

Subtle distinction but in some situations it might matter


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Adding “Exits” to Scales

Likert Scales Strongly Agree Agree Neither Agree or Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree Don’t know, No Opinion


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Do Exits Work?

Sometimes At best, the provide

A way for people to complete the survey with minimal frustration (and one goal is to make it easy for people to complete the survey)

Meaningful information (and avoid junk data)


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Do Exits Work?

But some people may not want to admit they don’t know People have been asked their opinions about

public programs that do not existRather than say “don’t know”, they find the

middle category: “I give a 3”; This is junk data

This suggests that analysts need to be very careful about how they analyze middle categories


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Big Exits: Skip Questions

Researchers can use skip questions when they want to target a handful of questions to specific participants.For example, in an organizational survey,

the researchers might want to ask a few questions that specifically apply to supervisors.


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They ask: do you supervise people.– This is a time to use a simple yes or no

response set.If yes, please answer the following 5

questions (questions 20-25).If no, please skip to question 26.


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Another example: if conducting a citizen survey, the researcher might ask: Did you use the library in the past year?__Yes

___ No If yes, please answer questions 10-13. If no, please skip to question 14.


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Writing Good Closed-Ended Questions Give people permission to provide answers

on either side of scale Phrasing can seem awkward but needed to

avoid bias: “How likely or unlikely are you to vote in the

election” sends the signal that it is OK to answer either likely or unlikely.


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Avoid Ranking Questions!!

They appear to be easy and meaningful but appearances are deceiving

They are very hard to analyze They give very limited information They can even distort information See text for my full and complete rant!!


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Writing Survey Questions: My Best Advice Locate surveys others have used and see if

there are questions that will work for your purpose

Use clear, simple language Encourage a range of responses using a 5-

point scale (or even a 7-point scale) Avoid simple yes or no responses when asking

about opinions


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Writing Survey Questions: My Best Advice Ask only one question at a time

Avoid double or triple-barreled questions“Do you think your supervisor

communicates well with staff about their performance as well as about what is happening in the agency?”

She might do one well but not the other. How would employee answer this question?


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Writing Survey Questions: My Best Advice Close all the “gates”

Provide instructions for skip questions Provide mutually exclusive responses

(eg. No overlapping categories for age or income)


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Writing Survey Questions: My Best Advice Focus on current experiences: memory decays

over time! The more distant the time, the more likely their recall

will be inaccurate.

Leave exits (no opinion, not applicable) Ask only the demographic questions that you

actually need, keeping in mind that some people may be identifiable (eg. the only woman on the faculty will be identifiable)


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Writing Survey Questions: My Best Advice Pre-test, pre-test, pre-test

With real participants, find out: Is each question clear?Are there unknown words or phrases? Is there a better way to ask each question? What questions did they expect to see but

did not? Remember: ask them for suggestions


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Practice: Writing Survey Questions Thinking about the observation of the room

exercise: Develop 5 closed-ended questions that would

enable everyone in the class to assess the key characteristics of the room

Develop 10 questions to assess student opinions about the quality of the MPA program?


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Practice: Writing Survey Questions Compare with partners Notice:

Similarities and differences? How many different topics were covered? How many different scales were used?

While there are guidelines that help, there is tremendous diversity things we each think matters most and the words we prefer


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Survey Questions In The News

Washington Post-ABC survey (11/09) asked: “On another subject, you may have heard about

the idea that the world's temperature may have been going up slowly over the past 100 years. What is your personal opinion on this - do you think this has probably been happening, or do you think it probably has not been happening?”


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Right Concept?

Is it global warming or climate change? Do some people think climate change is

happening but not global warming? How would they answer this question?


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Survey Questions In The News

“There's a proposed system called "cap and trade." The government would issue permits limiting the amount of greenhouse gases companies can put out. Companies that did not use all their permits could sell them to other companies. The idea is that many companies would find ways to put out less greenhouse gases, because that would be cheaper than buying permits. Would you support or oppose this system?”


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Right Question?

Is this the most accurate description of cap and trade?

For those who do not support cap and trade but do want the government to take action to mitigate climate change—how would they answer?


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Dilemma: Short but Biased?

My belief: to only ask about a single option for a complex policy issue is a form of bias But you can also see that the survey would get

quite long if all options were covered in the midst of a survey about many policy issues

It is a dilemma: need to keep it short and simple, but need to be comprehensive to avoid bias


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Writing Survey Questions: Final Words Writing questionnaires are harder than might appear The English language is sometimes difficult: the

same words can mean different things to different people

It is sometimes hard to get a complex issue nailed down in one question It may make take ten.

Pre-test, Pre-test, Pre-test Folks: you won’t write a great survey in a week!


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Credibility of Survey Results If the issue matters to you, look at the exact

wording of the question and the possible answers A news report may not give an accurate rendering Make sure the question did not try to lead to desired

answers (bias) Make sure there are an equal number of positive and

negative response options Consider whether they asked the right questions for the

topic Be on the look-out for fatally flawed questions


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Credibility of Survey Results

At the same time, keep in mind, it really is hard to write good survey questions

The appearance of bias might be the result of how they decided to handle the comprehensive vs keep in short dilemma

It is easy to criticize any survey but after you have done a few surveys, you will have more compassion for the work of others

Perfection is not the appropriate criteria


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Dr. G. Johnson, Writing Survey Questions Research Methods for Public Administrators Dr. Gail Johnson