Design Process

Effective surveys are sophisticated processes that integrate four critical design elements:

• What information is being sought?
• How are questions posed?
• How is the survey designed?
• How is the report designed and in particular how is the information presented graphically?

These elements influence response rates, information provided, the understanding and interpretation of final results and ultimately the use of the data by your organization. We understand these complexities of effective survey design and can help you navigate them.

Content Development

How do you determine the right questions to ask?

Identify Objectives

LearningBridge can help you with this initial step. We begin by identifying your objectives: What are you trying to find out, and what do you want to accomplish with the information you acquire?

Refine and Look Ahead

We then refine the process to speak not only to your current objectives, but to possible future applications as well. For example, if you are designing a leadership survey, we might explore incorporating demographic components that would permit trends analyses at a later time.

Provide Results

The result is a customized solution that speaks without compromise to your needs and objectives, within the context of your organization's culture and mission.

Survey Design

Consider the following simple staff evaluation question:

Does my manager clarify staff roles and expectations?

You will learn one thing if the response options to this question are quantitative (Always <-> Never) and another if they are qualitative (Effective <-> Poor).

Design Options

We can help you understand the survey options available and make recommendations to best fit your objectives. Some of the options to consider are:

• Question layout - should questions be grouped by category or randomized?
• Reminder frequency - how often and on what day should they be issued?
• Survey duration - how long should a survey ideally run?
• Survey length - what is the optimal number of questions before response rates tend to suffer?
• Response scales - what range and what headings could be used?
• Survey navigation - can participants navigate backwards to review completed questions, return to completed surveys, or skip questions?
• Page shading and layout - what will enhance response rates, and what will taint results by subtly influencing responses?
• Placement of demographic questions - should participants answer demographic questions at the beginning or end of the survey?

Report Design

It is possible to take the same data, present it multiple ways, and suggest different conclusions. Consider this example.

Pat helps to resolve team related performance problems

The bar graph alone (the Mean Score) indicates that Pat's performance is average, with a score of 3 out of 5. By looking at the additional information provided by the response distribution, however, it becomes apparent that people are polarized regarding Pat's performance since Pat's raters provided scores of either "Poor" or "Excellent" but nothing in between.

Data Visualization

LearningBridge works with you to identify not only how you want your data analyzed, but how you want the analyzed data presented. These graphical presentations can include:

• Bar graphs
• Scatter plots
• 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional renderings
• Comparisons of individuals against populations and population sub-sectors, etc.

Additionally, historical and demographic data parsing is available. Learn more in our Data Analysis section.

In short, we can customize our survey services and reports to give you the data you want, in the format you want.