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A Survey Software can provide you all helpful tools to build a responsive and interactive Survey. However, you have the responsibility to make sure that your respondents understand the questions so that you receive accurate answers.
Wording survey questions impacts how respondents interpret and then offer you their responses. It is a major concern because you have to follow several factors to ensure that the intention of the question is properly expressed to the respondents. You want all of the respondents to interpret the meaning of the question in the same way to get a valid result.
Here are some of the important factors you need to consider when writing survey questions.
The words of the questions should be clear and specific to what you are intending to ask. You need to guarantee that the respondent does not get confused or misinterpret the question.
For example, if you want to know their employment status, do you want to know whether they work or not? Or, do you want to know if they are an Intern, Part-time, Contractual, Full-timer, or Retired?
The biggest mistake you can make is by assuming that all respondents are educated enough to understand your questions. You should consider the education level and word survey questions so that it is easy to interpret.
Questions that ask respondents to evaluate two different concepts. The respondents will find them difficult to answer. Also, the responses you receive may even confuse you. For example, “How satisfied are you with the product category and our tech service?”
Look through your survey questions to see if you have used any word that leads the respondents to a specific answer.
For example, “Like most of our customers do you like our ‘free meal for homeless’ initiative?”
Questions such as these tell the respondents what kind of response you are expecting from them. The respondents feel pressured to answer a certain way. Such questions may also be too direct and the respondents may feel threatened. If the respondent answers with a ‘no’ it will imply that they don’t support the good cause of feeding the homeless.
Or, Do you believe free health check-ups are important?
The logical answer to this would be “yes”. And, the question leads the respondent to this answer. If your respondents experience stress while answering a question you should reconsider the format of the survey question.
While you may think of it as a casual question your respondents may not be comfortable sharing the information with you. It takes a few words to change the question from impersonal to intrusive in private life. Respondents are more likely to drop out of the survey if questions are sensitive.
Respondents may not be willing to answer questions about age, gender, education level, income, marital status, etc. These topics may make respondents feel embarrassed or they may simply not want to share this information with a stranger. You can ask such questions at the end of the survey so that the rest of the survey is not ruined. Give them the option to skip these questions.
Also, make sure that you word questions in a way that is appropriate and does not expect too much information from the respondents.
For example, “Did you have a satisfactory experience with the medical staff during your stay at the medical facility?” asks the respondent if they are satisfied on a personal level.
This question is different from the impersonal and detached question “Are the service provided by the caregiver satisfactory or not satisfactory?”
Similar to misinterpretation and leading questions, a survey question can be viewed as biased. The respondents may feel offended or it may also provoke an emotional reaction. Questions are written in a biased manner and also tell the respondents what is the “right” answer that they expect from you.
Research has found that respondents who are less educated and less informed will agree with statements. This is called “acquiescence bias” which means they are more likely to acquiesce.
The best way to avoid such a biased situation is to provide a middle ground as a response option. You can revise the question or add a “neither agree nor disagree” option.
For example, What is your stand in the Black Lives Matter movement?
Respondents are likely to agree with the question and avoid answers that are socially unacceptable. Offer a set of less extreme options that let people be honest about their opinion without having to conform with society.
Social desirability bias is caused because people want to be liked and accepted by society. This may lead to them providing accepted answers instead of the response that reflects their true opinion. And, so they may provide an inaccurate answer and you may end up with a skewed result.
Sometimes you may not think about how the meaning of the question will appear from the respondent’s perspective. For example, in a customer experience survey, a question asking respondents about their experience with your company’s mobile app assumes that they have used the app. This may confuse the respondents who have not yet used your mobile app.
For questions like this, it is better to include the survey tool filter. The filter can help you decide which questions should be shown to the respondents.
For example, if you ask “Have you used our Mobile App?” respondents who select the option “no” will not be shown questions related to the mobile app.
If you are unclear on how to appropriately word the survey questions you should run a test. Let your colleagues or a small group of customers answer the questions. This way you can figure out which question is causing issues and how to fix them.
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