Thanking you in advance for your assistance!
Hi Jennifer,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Thanks for your most interesting question, one we here at the CTB don’t get very often, if at all. As a survey research methodologist this question is right where I live so I’m excited to take a crack at it.
That said, the first thoughts that come to mind, which are really questions: what do you want to learn about city property development from community members’ perspectives?; who exactly are you going to sample?; and what are you going to do with the data you collect, that is, what is its ultimate use? The first question is the most relevant to our conversation today as what you want to learn from your survey respondents will inform the questions you’ll ask, make sense? I don’t know how much you know about or experiences you have with survey development, but survey questions typically ask respondents about their attitudes towards or opinions about a particular phenomenon or situation, about knowledge or skills they might possess, about experiences they’ve had, about their behaviors, about their aspirations or needs, etc. So, the question remains, what do you want to learn from community members about city property development? Do you want to learn their attitudes toward city property development? Do you want to learn what they know about city property development? Do you want to learn about their experiences with city property development? Do you want to know what goals they might have for city property development? A survey can take you in so many directions it’ll make your head spin! Okay, that’s the first thing to think about. Unfortunately I can’t help you in the development of specific questions without knowing what you want to learn from your potential respondents, but I can offer you guidance from a CTB chapter that discusses survey methods including how to formulate questions.
The CTB resources I suggest for your consideration are all found in Chapter 3 – Assessing Community Needs and Resources: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources, specifically Section 7. Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys, Section 10. Conducting Concerns Surveys, Section 13. Conducting Surveys, and Section 21.Windshield and Walking Surveys.
Section 13 is especially salient because it gives you the nuts and bolts about how to do surveys and if you scroll down to Write Your Questions it will take you through the question writing process step-by-step; I would read the entirety of this section first before writing your questions. In the last section, 21, if you scroll down a ways you’ll see What to examine in a general community assessment survey which I think you’ll find very informative regarding some questions that are asked in these kinds of surveys; you can create your own questions accordingly – awesome. Like I said, I’m not sure what you want to learn, but these resources will explain how to write good survey questions and conduct surveys the way they’re meant to be conducted! I think you’ll find each of these Chapter 3 sections very useful so I urge you to read through them as you have time; if you don’t have time then just focus in on the two sections I mentioned above.
I hope that helps you out Jennifer, if not, do revisit the CTB and Ask an Advisor again with more information about what you want to learn from your survey and I’ll try to get it sorted for you. With that, thank you for visiting the CTB, and for your question. On behalf of the CTB I wish the best of success in all your survey endeavors!
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