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Creating Surveys: Survey Design

Developing proper surveys and engaging in good survey research is difficult, but fascinating. This guide will help you find information about creating proper questionnaires and tools to use, so that you know where you can go from here.

Basic Rules for Survey Designing

Designing surveys you ensure that data from respondents will be gathered in a structured, systematic way. It involves planning the questions, layout, structure, and dissemination to ensure the information collected is reliable, relevant, and useful for the study's objectives.

1. Identify your research questions. 

  • What do you want to find out? 
  • Why is it important to investigate?
  • You should only have a few questions per project. 

2. Identify the population of interest.

  • What group or groups are you interested in?
  • What demographic groups may have differences within your population?
  • How will you reach your participants?

3. Identify the variables in your research.

  • What background information do you have?
  • Its useful to create a concept map to show relationships.

4. Create an instrument for data collection.

  • Include an introduction for participants and consent form
  • Avoid asking about multiple concepts in one question
  • Avoid leading questions
  • Do not overlap options
  • Provide a neutral option
  • Include limited open ended questions
  • Thank the respondent and provide contact information

5. Test your survey instrument​

  • Do participants understand the questions?
  • How long does it take?

6. Contact IREC to ensure ethics of survey.

Sage Research Methods

Guess what? We have a database that has tons of resources to help you develop and think through your research. Anything you're interested in doing, it will help you figure out how and why. Videos, books, journal articles, and chapters to inspire you!

Use the Methods Map to browse methods of doing survey research. You can also use it to inspire new ideas.

methods map in Sage: Survey Research, includes related topics

CITI Program

Tips and Guides for Survey Designing

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