Blog

A resource for learning how to design effective Social Research surveys.

Response code sets

April 7th, 2016|

Here are some of the best practice response code sets for question design:

Satisfaction rating
Very satisfied
SatisfiedNeither satisfied nor dissatisfied
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied

Importance rating
Very important
Important
Moderately important
Of little importance
Not at all important

Quality
Extremely good
Above average
Average
Below average
Extremely poor

Excellent
Very good
Good
Fair
Poor

Safety
Very safe
Safe
Neither
Unsafe
Very unsafe

Frequency
Daily or most days
2-3 times a week
Weekly
Fortnightly
Monthy
Every 2-3 months
2-3 times a year
Annually
Less often
Never

sometimes the following code frame is used, but it […]

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Online survey screening questions

February 4th, 2016|

Screening is where the surveyer screens for certain types of people up front in an online survey.
Whilst this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, one needs to take into consideration that there are a lot of people out there who are members of online survey panels in order to accumulate ‘points’ or cash from participating. […]

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How to create great charts – cheat sheet

January 11th, 2016|

Here is a 1 page ‘cheat sheet’ of sorts to help you create nice looking charts for your research reports.

The examples have been created in Microsoft Office Excel.

Click here to see the document.

If you need any tips on how to edit charts in Excel or determining/setting colour schemes, let me know!

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Survey design tips

December 5th, 2015|

When designing a survey, you can greatly improve the quality of the survey by checking the following things:

Use simple English.
Think about whether the question can be interpreted in multiple ways. When designing questions you need to make sure that there is only one interpretation of the meaning of the question otherwise respondents will become […]

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How to define a target market

November 8th, 2015|

In the realm of social research, the target market  is the group of people with whom you wish to conduct your research.

It is important to define your target market early on in the research planning process as it plays a critical role in developing the methodology and designing an appropriate research tool.

Before you can define […]

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Tips for analysis

October 25th, 2015|

When compiling a written analysis of data, it is important to frame explanations in the correct way. Here are a few tips that may help.

If you are referring to an age group, make sure that you word it in such a way so as people can’t misinterpret it. For instance, if your age group […]

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Changing questions in tracking surveys

March 27th, 2014|

This is a very simple one. If the question is wrong, change it. There is no point continuing to collect rubbish data just for the sake of ‘tracking’. It will not assist you in any way, in fact it will feed misinformation.
Just make sure that when reporting changes over time, the alteration to the […]

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The cost factor: cutting corners in design to reduce cost

February 23rd, 2014|

I am going to make my position on this very clear from the outset… Don’t do it!!!
This is perhaps one of the worst trends I see happening in research in recent years. As it becomes easier to do research for low cost (Surveymonkey etc) I see lots of organisations running sub-standard research.Not only does this devalue […]

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Survey sampling: Is telephone research no longer viable in Australia?

January 30th, 2014|

Conducting research using random digit dial (RDD) landline numbers has for decades been the staple of the research industry. In recent years the effectiveness of this methodology has been in significant decline; first due to the withdrawl of electronic White Pages from public access in 2002, followed by a significant decline in landline installation […]

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Agree Disagree Ratings Questions: Do we need to move away from this question type?

January 15th, 2014|

Agree Disagree scales are one of the most common types of question found in social research surveys. They are usually used to ascertain the opinions and perceptions of respondents relating to a particular issue. However, research suggests that framing questions in this way results in a notably lower level of quality (read: accuracy) in […]

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