Top survey techniques every post graduate students wish to know!
Embarking on a research project for one of your subjects? If so, then it would be helpful to know the main tips and techniques to consider when it comes to surveying. As a post graduate student, you will have better chances of avoiding rookie mistakes by knowing the necessary tips related to this type of research. Some students might have already finished up with their research projects. Afterwards, they realised unnecessary steps could have been avoided had they already known some vital tips.
Perhaps you’ve used to conducting research as you’ve already carried out a couple of those in the past or you’re new at this. Either way, here are just some of the techniques you can imbibe on your upcoming endeavor:
Know the most commonly used types of survey
As you gather up some quantitative data to ensure your findings will hold significant water in relation to a topic, it’s good to know your major options on methods. Your respondents’ answers will be telling of a trend you can forecast, and hence they’ll greatly contribute to your upcoming decisions.
You’ll have self-completed and interviewer-administered surveys as your options. The former is a much more affordable type of survey. You can develop them as actual hard copies on print outs, or you may also have a survey posted online. The risk of this format is that you won’t be too sure of how the respondents have exactly understood your questions.
Considering interviewer-administered surveys are more expensive, but you’ll be much more certain each of your questions will be correctly understood. Hence, you’ll have more chances of getting accurate data from your respondents.
What to avoid in a survey
To increase the accuracy of your survey’s results, you must be sure to avoid some faux pas when it comes to giving out your questionnaires. One of the major mistakes would be to ask about leading questions. Leading statements may be avoided by the usage of neutral words. Open-ended questions are also advisable since these would lead the respondents to answer with their own, raw thoughts and feelings.
Double-barreled questions will also lead you to getting less optimal responses. Be sure to only let your respondents answer one question at a time. Complicated queries will lead to inaccurate responses.
Viable sources to create your surveys
If you’re still unsure of how to draft a questionnaire for your survey, you can use top websites as your beginning templates. Some of them are even effective enough to stand as web-based surveys.
Some of the top online surveys you can test would be that of Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Type Form, Client Heartbeat, and Survey Gizmo. A few of them are free, while others require payments. Aside from their functionalities, it would also be necessary to check their measurement methods and ways of drawing out raw data for your reference.
These are just some of the techniques which you may consider as you embark on your upcoming surveying endeavor. See how they can improve your project and generate the most accurate responses soon.