Over at NBRI, Dr. Terrie Nolinske has begun a new series of articles aimed at explaining the benefits and pitfalls of conducting a survey.  I enjoy Dr. Nolinske’s writings so much that I decided to mirror each her articles with one of my own to bring some of her discussions over to SSO.

Dr. Nolinske’s inaugural article this week is entitled “Minimizing Errors in Survey Research”.  She discusses the potential errors in the layout and design of a survey instrument.  I decided to add to this by giving examples of errors in the wording or phrasing of survey questions.

Common Errors in Creating Survey Questions

Oftentimes those uninitiated in the formulation of survey questions want to go to a website and find questions or a survey template that fit their needs; cookie cutter questions that appear to ask what it is they want to know from customers, employees, voters, or consumers.  This is good if the original author of those questions is knowledgeable and the questions ask exactly what you are attempting to find out from your survey audience.