Outline

This introduction to survey design workshop involves three one-hour modules:

1. Survey research, theory, types, and pros and cons of this research method
2. Survey design - Principles and nuts and bolts of survey development, including types of questions and response formats
3. Survey examples - guided peer discussion about draft surveys

Participants

The target audience for the face-to-face workshop is post-graduate research students and academic staff in the Australian Capital Territory who are in the early stages of developing survey-based research proposals and/or surveys for research projects. The workshop materials are publicly and freely available online.

See participants for more info. There is also more info for online participants.

Objectives

Survey research

How to design and develop survey-based research

1. Survey research as a research method
2. Common types (e.g., face-to-face interview, mail survey, internet survey) and the pros and cons of each
3. Steps in survey development

Survey design

Nuts & bolts of questionnaire design, including:

1. Question types
2. Response formats
3. Layout
4. Pilot testing
5. Sampling

Survey examples

Critically examine example and draft surveys

1. Review example surveys
2. Review participant draft surveys

Materials

1. Resources
   1. Survey design workshop (Slides)
   2. Example surveys for critical discussion
   3. Readings (particularly Fowler and Nardi)
   4. Ask questions as we go - or add them here

1. Topics
   1. Level of measurement
   2. Online surveys
   3. Research purposes
   4. Sampling
      • Response rates
      • Margin of error
   5. Survey research
   6. Survey design

1. Workshop
   1. Instructor notes
   2. Evaluation

See also

1. Survey research
2. Survey design
3. Survey research and design in psychology