Survey Design Worksheet

Survey Design Worksheet

The following questions are designed to assist you in thinking through key aspects of the survey that you want to complete. We hope you find it helpful.

Survey Design Checklist

  1. What is the name of the survey?
  2. What is the survey type?(360, Team Rater, Knowledge Acquisition)
  3. If the survey will be a 360, list all respondent categories that will be used (e.g., Managers, Peers, Direct Reports, etc.)
  4. Approximately how many participants will be taking the survey?
  5. What are the Response Scales
    (1-5, 1-7, 1-5 and Don't Know option, etc.)?
  6. How many questions will the survey have?
  7. How will the questions be arranged? (For example, 20 questions clustered in 4 groups of 5 questions each.)
  8. Will text boxes be used? If so, what is their placement (after every question, after groups of categorized questions, at the very end, etc.)?
  9. From whom should the e-mail invitations be sent, i.e., whose name and e-mail address should appear on the "From" line on the e-mail (LearningBridge, a client, etc).
  10. What should the subject line of the e-mail invitations say?
  11. Will e-mail reminders be used? If yes:
    1. How many e-mail reminders should be sent out?
    2. On what dates should the e-mail reminders be sent out?
    3. LearningBridge can provide the text for general e-mail reminders, or this text can be provided by the client. Provide contact information for individuals who will be responsible if e-mail text is to be provided by the client.
    4. What should the subject line of the e-mail reminders say?
    5. From whom should the e-mail reminders be sent, i.e., whose name and e-mail address should appear on the "From" line on the e-mail (LearningBridge, a client, etc.)
    6. Do different e-mail reminders need to be sent to different types of people taking the survey?
  12. Will demographic information be captured?
  13. Will gender information be captured? This can be used both for statistical purposes and to permit surveys to be properly worded for gender. However, this is only a viable design option if gender is a mandatory field of completion. If "gender" is an optional survey response, then the survey must be worded throughout to be gender neutral.
  14. Will different people be taking different versions of the survey?
  15. Will participants access the survey through a login ID and password or through an encrypted URL (both provided to survey Participants in the survey invitation sent out by LearningBridge)?

Timing and Deliverables Checklist

  1. On what date and time is the survey to begin (i.e., when should survey e-mail invitations be sent)?
    Note time zone. e.g., Eastern Standard Time, Pacific Standard Time, etc.
  2. On what date and time is the survey to end?
    Note time zone. e.g., Eastern Standard Time, Pacific Standard Time, etc.
  3. On what date and time are survey reports to be delivered? Please note that it takes 2 business days after the survey closes for PDF reports to be produced.
  4. To whom should the reports be delivered?

Anonymity Parameters Checklist

  1. What categories of survey respondents (if any) are and are not assured anonymity?
    In 360 surveys, for example, feedback provided by Managers is typically identified under a separate category within the survey report, effectively stripping Managers of anonymity.
    Feedback provided by Peers and Direct Reports, on the other hand, is typically grouped together so that no response from any single Peer or Direct Report can be identified, thereby preserving anonymity.
  2. If a category of survey respondents IS assured anonymity, what is the minimum number of respondents that must be obtained for that category to be shown in the survey report? Typically, the minimum is 2 or 3 respondents within a single survey respondent category.
  3. For example, if Peers are assured anonymity in a 360 survey and feedback from only one Peer is obtained, that Peer's response would not appear in the survey report under the Peer heading, but would instead be grouped with the responses from all survey respondents and appear under an "All Respondents" heading.

Navigation Checklist

  1. Can questions be skipped?
  2. Is there a "Not Applicable" or "Don't Know" option?
  3. Can people return to fully completed surveys before the cut-off date and modify responses?
  4. Can people navigate backwards through the survey and change responses?
  5. Will survey questions be sequential or randomized?
  6. How many questions should appear per page? One per screen, or multiple questions per screen (which will create a scrolling survey)?

Technical Checklist

  1. Will all survey participants have Internet access?
  2. Will e-mailing of surveys to Participants and/or Respondents be required?
  3. Who will handle entry of Participant names and e-mail addresses? These can be entered by the client through a simple Web interface or by LearningBridge if the names and e-mail addresses are provided in a consistent tab or comma delimited format (Excel, MS-Word, or text files).
  4. Please provide contact information for the person who will provide text for the initial email survey invitations, introductory survey web screens, etc.
  5. Who will be the Point of Contact within the company to respond to conceptual issues by Participants?
  6. Who will be the Technical Point of Contact within the company to respond to technical issues by Participants (for example, dealing with PC-level firewall issues or Client-end Internet access problems), as well as acting as the technical point of contact with LearningBridge (for example, dealing with system-wide firewall issues)?
  7. Sometimes, incremental design changes are requested by individuals who do not have budgetary authority. Is formal budget approval for each of these changes necessary, or is it acceptable to implement changes without formal approval so long as the changes remain under a certain dollar threshold?
    1. If such changes are acceptable, what is the dollar threshold for each individual change that does not require formal budget approval?
    2. If such changes are acceptable, what is the dollar threshold for aggregate changes that do not require formal budget approval? For example, if the answer to "7a" is $500 and three such changes are made, is $1500 an acceptable threshold that does not require formal budget approval?

Reports Checklist

  1. What statistical information should be presented? E.g., comparative data within the survey of groups against groups, data across demographic sectors, confidence intervals, quartiles, medians, aggregate and/or summary data, etc.
  2. How should survey results be presented (graphics)? E.g., bar graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, box plots, particular anchor scaling, etc.
  3. Is historical data desired, i.e., comparing current survey results to those of previous surveys?
  4. Reports are normally produced in Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format). Please specify if any different format options are required (PowerPoint, HTML, raw data, etc.).

Survey Implementation Checklist

  1. How many times over the next year do you anticipate running this survey?
  2. How many people do you roughly estimate will be participating in each survey implementation?
  3. Do you anticipate running other surveys over the following year? If yes:
    1. What type of survey(s) (360, Team Rater, Data Acquisition)
    2. How many times do you anticipate running each of these survey(s) over the following year?
    3. How many people do you estimate will be participating in each survey implementation?

Customized Report Design Elements

Are there any other elements of the report that need to be considered? For example, different sections of the report may be analyzed and presented differently.