Dr. Nolinske’s second article in her series is online over at NBRI, “Methods of Survey Data Collection”.  As always, she is insightful and interesting.

As a compliment to her article, I have listed some questions that will help you determine which data collection method is best for your survey.  I welcome your input.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1.    What type of survey?

• Employee Survey
• Customer survey
• Political Poll
• Market Research
• Other

2.    Approximately how many questions?

The type of survey often determines how many questions you can or want to ask.  You do not want to overburden customers with too many questions, we suggest keeping it under 30, even less for phone interviews since costs skyrocket and response rates plummet if you go higher.  You can go a little higher if it is online.  Employees, on the other hand, are somewhat of a captive audience.

3.    What is your budget?

4.    What is your timeline?

5.    Do you have a list of potential respondents or will you need to acquire one?

6.    What geographic location(s) will you target?

• Worldwide
• National
• International
• State
• County
• Zip Code
• Other

7.    Will this add to cost?

• Travel
• International postage
• International phone calls
• Other

8.    Are there any language considerations?

• Language translation
• Regional dialects that could effect survey data
• Hearing Impaired or other disability

9.    What information do you have for the respondents?

• Email addresses*
• Mailing addresses
• Phone numbers

* If you do not have email addresses for potential respondents, you can distribute survey invitations by mail (or payroll insert in the case of an employee survey) to direct recipients to complete the survey online.

10.     Offer an incentive to obtain a better response rate?

11.     What format should the collected data be available in?

• Raw data
• Tables
• Graphs
• Other

12.     Do you have qualified personnel to interpret your data?

QUESTIONS ABOUT SURVEY DEPLOYMENT METHODS

1.    IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS

• In-house interviewers, hired interviewers?
• Security concerns (dangerous neighborhoods, etc.)?
• Travel?
• Costs for travel?

2.    TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS

• In-house, hired?
• Required telephone equipment/office space?
• Language issues, regional dialects?
• Telephone charges (including international)
• Data entry training required?

3.    MAILED QUESTIONNAIRES

• Postage costs?
• Translation services?
• Printing costs?
• Data entry costs?

4.    ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRES

• Translation services?
• Database services?