1. +
How to Ask Survey
Questions
Workshop on Survey Design

2. +
Learning Objectives
 After this class you will be able to:
1. Construct questions that are clear to your
intended audience
2. Construct questions requiring ordered
responses or scales
3. Choose among question types
4. Check that questions will provide data that
meets your goal

3. +
Exercise 1: Survey Analysis
Look over and take the Green Attitudes survey
 What are your reactions to the survey?
 What did you like about the survey? Dislike?
 What do you think about the content and length of the survey?

4. +
Overview of Previous Workshop
 Concepts
 Checklist of Survey Tasks
 Overview of the survey process
 Guidelines for Asking Questions
 Best practices for question wording

5. +
Review:
Guidelines for Asking Questions
 Ask purposeful, concrete questions that use conventional
language
 Avoid bias in words and phrasing
 Avoid two-edged questions and negative questions
 Use shorter questions
 Choosing between Open and Closed Questions

6. +
Review: Selecting Open and Closed
Ended Questions
 Copy over
Use Open Use Closed
Purpose Respondents’ own words
essential
Want data that are rated or
ranked and can order the ratings
in advance
Respondents Are capable and willing to
provide answers in their
own words
Are unwilling or unable to
express themselves while being
surveyed
Questions Prefer open because
choices are unknown
Using a pre-specified set of
response choices
Analysis Have ability to analyze
variety of comments
Prefer to count the number of
choices
Reporting Provide individual or
grouped verbal
responses
Reports statistical data

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Types of Closed Questions
 Categorical: The number next to each response has no
meaning except as a placeholder for that response.
 Multiple Choice: Select one or more answers.
 Ordinal: Assigns a meaningful number to responses, puts
things in order.
 Likert Scale: To assess a person's feelings about something.
 Ranking: Rank things in relation to other things.
 Numerical: For real numbers, like age, number of months.

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Advantages of Closed-Ended
Questions
 Easy to code, enter, and analyze
 Easy to present
 Quick turnaround
 Enhanced reliability
 Less researcher bias
 High degree of anonymity

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Disadvantages of Closed Ended
Questions
 Harder to develop questions and response categories
 May force invalid responses
 Less depth and substance
 Respondents unable to explain, qualify, or clarify answer
During the past month, have you felt depressed?
0 = No
1 = Yes, once in a while
2 = Yes, some of the time
3 = Yes, most of the time
4 = Yes, all of the time

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3 Types of Closed Questions
1. Categorical
2. Ordinal
 Likert Scale
 Ranking
3. Numerical

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Categorical Questions, ex. 1-2
 Gender
 Male
 Female
 Transgender
 Color of eyes
 Blue
 Black
 Brown
 Hazel
 Ask respondents to tell which
category they fit into
 Response choices should be
mutually exclusive
 Response choices should be
inclusive and exhaustive
 Use groups that make sense in
the survey and will be useful in
reporting results
 Can allow respondents to
choose more than one answer

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Categorical Questions, ex. 3
 Ask respondents to tell which
category they fit into
 Response choices should be
mutually exclusive
 Response choices should be
inclusive and exhaustive
 Use groups that make sense in
the survey and will be useful in
reporting results
 Can allow respondents to
choose more than one answer
 4. My child/children attend(s)
 Public school
 Non-local public school
 Charter school
 Private school
 Does not attend school yet
 Graduated
 Other (please specify)
__________________

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Exercise 2: Improve Poor Categorical
Questions
1. Which one of the following best describes your primary
expertise?
 Landlord-tenant problems
 Consumer problems
 Traffic cases
 Other (specify)
2. Which of the following best describes you?
 Professional
 Registered nurse
 Nurse practitioner
 Administrator
 Nurse midwife Professional
RN
Practitioner

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Ordinal Questions, ex. 1-2
 How satisfied are you with how
long you can check out books?
1. Very dissatisfied
2. Dissatisfied
3. Satisfied
4. Very Satisfied
 What is the highest level of
education that you have
completed?
1. Elementary school
2. High school graduate
3. Some college
4. College graduate
 Use a meaningful scale
 Balance all responses
 Use don’t know or neutral
carefully
 Use 4- to 7-point rating scales,
with negative end first
 Keep uncluttered and easy to
complete

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Ordinal Questions: Likert Scales
 Considering your reading habits, during the past year how often
did you read the following newspapers, journals, and
magazines? Circle one number for each periodical.
Periodical Never
(1)
Rarely
(2)
Sometimes
(3)
Frequently
(4)
Always
(5)
New York
Times
1 2 3 4 5
Wall Street
Journal
1 2 3 4 5
Cosmopolitan 1 2 3 4 5
New England
Journal of
Medicine
1 2 3 4 5
Sports
Illustrated
1 2 3 4 5

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Ordinal Questions: Ranking ex. 1
 Rank items against each other
 Each item is assigned a number
 Don’t make list too long
 Can be very confusing, use sparingly
Based upon what you have seen, heard,
and experienced, please rank the following
brands according to their reliability. Place
a "1" next to the brand that is most reliable,
a "2" next to the brand that is next most
reliable, and so on. Remember, no two
cars can have the same ranking .
__ Honda
__ Toyota
__ Mazda
__ Ford

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Ordinal Questions: Ranking ex. 2
 Rank items against each other
 Each item is assigned a number
 Don’t make list too long
 Can be very confusing, use sparingly

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Exercise 3: Improve Poor Ordinal
Questions
1. How satisfied were you with your hotel stay?
 Completely Satisfied, Very Satisfied, Pretty Satisfied,
Satisfied, A Little Satisfied, Slightly Satisfied,
Unsatisfied, Don’t Know
2. Please rate your instructor on the following criteria

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Numerical Questions
 Numerical: For real numbers, like age, number of
months.
1. How old are you?
2. In what year were you born?
3. what is your annual income?

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Types of Closed Questions
 Categorical: The number next to each response has no
meaning except as a placeholder for that response.
 Multiple Choice: Select one or more answers.
 Ordinal: Assigns a meaningful number to responses, puts
things in order.
 Likert Scale: To assess a person's feelings about something.
 Ranking: Rank things in relation to other things.
 Numerical: For real numbers, like age, number of months.

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Survey Goals Revisited
 What question or questions are you trying to answer?
 What information do you need to decide upon an answer?
 What actions will you take when you have the survey’s results?
 Start or stop doing something?
 Make a purchase?
 Select content for a class?
 Who is your audience?

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Every Question Should Have a
Purpose
 Keep your survey as short as possible
 Every question should provide data you will use to make a
decision
 Don’t automatically include questions you’ve seen before
 Don’t just use questions that are about your topic without thinking
about the resulting actions possible from the data
 Be sure that every answer will cause you to do something
differently
 Don’t ask questions just to satisfy curiosity

23. +
Exercise 4: Survey Audience and
Goals
 Look over your group’s survey
 Green Attitudes : 5-8, 10, 29
 Great Streets : 20, 26-28, 35
 Vogue Knitting: 5-6, 9, 12, 28, 29, 47
 What were the goals of the survey creator?
 Who is the audience of the survey?
 Look carefully at each question
 Will the data gathered meet the goals of the survey?
 Will the answers to any individual question make a choice clearer?

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Kinds of Information
 Copy over Description Example
Knowledge What people know; how
well they understand
something
True or False:The most effective
weight loss plan includes
exercise.
Belief What people think is true;
an opinion
Do you think that lower food
prices would increase
consumption?
Attitude How people feel about
something; a preference
Do you favor or oppose a
smoking ban in your county?
Behavior What people do; can be
mental or physical
Have you ever attended a
Library workshop?
Attributes What people are; what
people have
Demographics: What year do
you plan to graduate?

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When to Use Categorical Questions
 Can be used to find all types of information,
but answer choices are limited
 To ask many questions in a short time period
 When there are a finite number of options
 Be careful in analysis
 Cannot compare one item to another
 Can create a frequency distribution
 If only one answer allowed, you don’t have data
about the other answers

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When to Use Ordinal Questions:
Ranking
 Best used to assess attitudes and
knowledge
 To rate things in relation to other
things
 When there are a finite number of options
 Be careful in analysis
 There is not a meaningful interval between choices
 Can create a frequency distribution or cumulative frequency
distribution
 Cannot average, add, subtract data

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When to Use Ordinal Questions:
Likert-Scale
 Best used to assess beliefs and attitudes
 Sample scales
 Very dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied, very
satisfied
 Strongly disagree, disagree somewhat, uncertain, agree somewhat,
strongly agree
 Be careful in analysis
 Be sure your intervals are meaningful and equal
 Can average, add, subtract, and create frequency distributions

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When to Use Numerical Questions
 Best used for attributes (demographics)
 For precise real numbers, not ranges
 Can analyze using most methods
 Multiply, divide, average, add, subtract, and frequency distributions
 If your survey tool doesn’t support this data type, you can
approximate with an open-ended question
 You will have to manually analyze data

29. +
Exercise 5: Matching Question
Types to Goals
1. Name one action you might you take with each goal’s results.
2. What type of data do you need to meet each goal?
3. What question type will help you get that data?
4. Write a sample question for each goal.
 Goal 1: Determine if patrons know what services we offer at the
Reference Desk.
 Goal 2: Determine if people are satisfied with the wait times at
the Circulation Desk.
 Goals 3: Determine if the respondents to your survey are
representative of the whole campus.

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Don’t Forget…
 Ask enough demographic questions to ensure that your
intended audience is represented
 Ask as few questions as possible
 Don’t ask too many open-ended questions
 Will lower response rate
 One is usually enough
 Don’t have too many Likert-scale questions in a large block

31. +
Learning Objectives Revisited
 After this class you will be able to:
1. Construct questions that are clear to your intended audience
2. Construct questions requiring ordered responses or scales
3. Choose among question types
4. Check that questions will provide data that meets your goal

32. +
Templates