Section 13. Conducting Surveys

• What are surveys?

• Why should you conduct a survey?

• When should you conduct a survey?

• How do you prepare a survey?

• How do you distribute your survey?

• How do you analyze and compile the results of your survey?

When you want somebody's opinion, you ask for it. Right? That's easy enough when you're just dealing with one or a few people. But what if you want to know the opinion of an entire town or an entire population? Getting an answer from everyone in your town or every member of a particular group may be nearly impossible. So how do you get an idea of what these folks think? You use a survey.

Conducting surveys can be very simple, or it can be very complicated, depending on how much you want to ask on the survey and the number of people to whom it is administered. This section will mainly focus on doing surveys on a fairly small local scale, and we will give you some ideas about where to find information should you need to do a survey on a larger scale.

What are surveys?

A survey is a way of collecting information from a group of people. When the survey is carefully designed and the people surveyed appropriately represent the larger group, the results can help you understand the views of the whole community or population in which you are interested.

There are three main ways of going about this:

1. Case study surveys, which collect information from a part of a group or community, without trying to choose them for overall representation of the larger population. You may need to conduct several of these before you get a sense of how different parts of the larger community might respond to your survey. Case study surveys provide specific information about the people or community studied, but their results should not automatically be assumed to represent everyone.
2. Sampled surveys, which are the type we'll be focusing on in this section, ask a sample portion of a group to answer your questions. If the sample is carefully selected and the survey is conducted well, the results can provide useful estimates of what you might have found by surveying the entire group. For example, let's say you want to know what percentage of people in your county would make use of an adult literacy program. Getting every person in a county with 10,000 people to fill out a survey would be a huge task. Instead you decide to survey a sample of 500 people and find out what they think. For the sample to accurately represent the larger group, however, the way those 500 people are selected matters at least as much as the number selected. We'll speak to that later in this section.
3. Census surveys, in which you give your survey questionnaire to every member of the population you want to learn about. A census attempts to include the entire group and can provide very comprehensive information when participation is high, but it may not be practical for large groups and can still be affected by nonresponse or incomplete answers. A census is often most practical with smaller groups -- all of the clients of a particular agency, for example, as opposed to all of the residents of a city.

Surveys are often self-administered, although sometimes an interviewer reads the questions aloud and records the answers for another person. Surveys can be distributed by mail, e-mail, or online, or the questions can be asked over the phone or in person.

Surveys generally try to collect information in as uniform a manner as possible -- asking each respondent the same questions in the same way so that differences in answers are more likely to reflect respondents' experiences and opinions rather than differences in how the questions were presented.

Why should you conduct a survey?

You can collect information about the behaviors, needs, and opinions using surveys. Surveys can be used to find out attitudes and reactions, to measure participant satisfaction, to gauge opinions about various issues, and to add useful evidence to your research. Surveys are a primary source of information -- that is, you directly ask someone for a response to a question, rather than relying only on secondary sources such as existing written records.

You can use surveys to measure ideas or opinions about community issues related to your initiative. For example, you may want to know how many people use your services, what users think about your services, what new users expect from your services, and whether users are satisfied with what you provide.

Deciding whether to conduct a survey

There are advantages in doing surveys, but you should consider whether a survey will be the best way of obtaining the information you need. Even though surveys are a useful method of gathering information, they are not the only way. You will need to decide whether a survey will produce the information you need. The information you need may be obtained through other means, such as informal unstructured conversation that takes place in the course of another activity; census figures; meeting with people in the community; interviews; or observation.

When should you conduct a survey?

A survey may be your best choice when:

• You need an efficient way of getting information from many people
• You need to reach a large number of people
• You need information that can be generalized to a larger population and have the resources to use an appropriate sampling method
• The information you need isn't readily available through other means

Written surveys: Pros and Cons

Advantages of written surveys:

• Large numbers of people can give their input
• Can be relatively low cost
• People can respond at their convenience
• Reduces the possibility that an interviewer's behavior or wording will influence responses
• Provides a written record
• Responses can often be listed or tabulated easily
• Can reach a wide range of respondents
• Requires less interviewer training than an interviewer-administered survey, although careful survey design and administration are still important

Disadvantages of written surveys:

• Response rates may be low
• Offers limited opportunity for respondents to explain or clarify their reactions
• Results depend heavily on how the sample is selected
• Respondents may not adequately represent the whole group
• Respondents may skip sections

If you have decided that what you need is a large-scale, formal survey, hiring someone to do it for you or working with local colleagues or a nearby university may be your best bet. If you're going to do it on your own, keep in mind that the credibility of your findings will depend on how carefully the survey, sample, data collection, and analysis are designed and documented.

How do you prepare a survey?

Decide on the purpose of the survey.

If you have decided to do a survey, you must first be sure exactly why you're doing it. What questions do you want to answer? Is it to get a general idea of the demographics of your area? To find out what people think about a particular issue or idea? Or is there another reason you're considering a survey?

In any case, you will need to keep the purpose of the survey in mind throughout the process, as it will influence the choice of questions, the survey population, and even the way the survey is delivered. For example, an online survey may work well for a population with reliable Internet and device access, while other populations may need paper, telephone, in-person, translated, or otherwise accessible options.

Example: Youth Risk Behavior Survey purpose

The Youth Risk Behavioral Survey (or YRBS) is conducted biennially by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among high school students. It is designed to monitor health-related behaviors and experiences among young people and to track changes over time. Some later examples in this section use historical 1997 and 1999 YRBS materials to illustrate survey methods.

The YRBS includes questions on a number of health-related behaviors and experiences. These include:

• Behaviors and experiences related to unintentional injuries and violence
• Tobacco use
• Alcohol and other drug use
• Sexual behaviors and experiences related to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV
• Dietary behaviors
• Physical activity

Decide whom you will survey.

The next step is finding out who has the answers to your question or questions. In other words, it's time for you to determine your audience -- the people who can best answer the questions your initiative needs to ask. Who will you survey? Is it the general public? The current program participants? People in a specific neighborhood or segment of the community? Potential members?

Sampling

Many surveys rely on sampling -- that is, selecting a portion of the population you want to understand, rather than trying to conduct a census of everyone.

If you want the results to represent a larger population, the way the sample is selected is crucial. A probability-based sample gives members of the population a known chance of being selected. You also need to consider whether important parts of the population are covered by your sampling method and whether the people who respond differ systematically from those who do not. Sample size matters too, but simply making a biased or self-selected sample larger does not make it representative. In general, with an appropriately designed sample, larger samples can reduce sampling error and allow more precise estimates.

You can figure out how big your sample should be by using a sample size calculator, such as:

• The Survey System's Sample Size Calculator allows you to decide whether you want to calculate for 95% or 99% confidence level (the statistical term for the amount of certainty you want around your estimate, under the assumptions used by the calculation).
• UCLA's Sample Size Calculator from the online statistics textbook is a bit more advanced.

Sample Design Issues

You might also need to give some thought to the design of your sample, especially if you are hoping to get meaningful responses from two or more groups. For example, let's say you are doing a survey on youth violence and you want to get responses from youth, parents, and educators; this means that you'll need to think separately about how each of these groups will be represented. Samples may be proportional to the populations they represent, or you may deliberately sample more heavily from a smaller group when you need enough responses to analyze that group separately. If you do that and want an overall population estimate, appropriate weighting may be needed.

For example, a simple proportional design might come out like this:

	Youth	Parents	Educators
Population	650	200	500
Sample	65	20	50

Sampling can be a complex topic; before you start, you might want to learn some of the basic terminology and concepts from resources such as Sampling Terminology and Survey Sample Sizes and Margins of Error.

Potential pitfalls

Sampling is a challenge to conducting good surveys, but there are other pitfalls. For example, when people volunteer to respond to a survey, we say they are self-selected. These people may have a special interest in answering your survey, so their answers may not be representative of the group you're interested in. Simply selecting every second or third response from a self-selected group does not remove that bias. If you need population-level estimates, use an appropriate sampling design from the beginning. If that isn't possible, be clear that the results describe the people who responded, compare respondents with the larger population when possible, and interpret the findings with appropriate caution.

For example, if you post an open survey and get back 300 completed responses, randomly discarding some of those responses will not turn the volunteers into a representative sample. The important question is how the respondents were recruited and how well they reflect the population you are trying to understand.

Decide what method you will use to collect your survey data.

Will your survey be written or oral? Will people complete it online, by mail, by phone, or in person? Will it be administered by people known to the audience? You need to decide which method, or combination of methods, will make participation practical and accessible for the people you want to reach. Response rates can vary widely according to the population, topic, survey length, mode of contact, follow-up, and other factors.

Keep in mind whom you want to survey. Does your public feel more comfortable writing, speaking, or responding online? Do community members have reliable access to the devices, Internet connections, phones, languages, and accessible formats needed for the method you choose? Will it be efficient to leave surveys somewhere for people to pick up at their convenience, or should you make sure selected participants receive one? If your survey is to be administered orally, will people feel comfortable discussing the subject with an interviewer?

Mailed questionnaires can still be a useful tool in your information-gathering bag of tools. They allow you to reach people across long distances without requiring Internet access or an interviewer for every response. If you're considering doing a mailed survey, be sure to check with your local post office for current information on mailing regulations and rates.

Some advantages of mailed questionnaires are:

• The respondent can fill out the survey at their convenience -- it can be filled out whenever the respondent has time.
• You can make it anonymous, which may be more comfortable for some respondents.
• All respondents receive the same written questions, reducing variation caused by interviewers presenting questions differently.
• The respondent has time to check records before answering if they need to verify information.

Some disadvantages of mailed questionnaires are:

• They're not very flexible; there is no interviewer present to probe for answers or clarify confusion, so you can only use what the respondent has written.
• The response rate may be low
• Respondents may leave answers blank
• You have limited control over when respondents will send the survey back
• You may not be able to tell the difference between people who chose not to return the survey and people who never received it because the address was incorrect.

How long should your survey be?

When determining the length of your survey, remember that less is often more. Every question should serve a purpose. Long or repetitive surveys may increase the chance that people stop before finishing, but there is no single page or question limit that works for every survey. The appropriate length depends on the topic, complexity of the questions, method of administration, and what participants have been told to expect.

What it is you want to know and the method of survey (e.g., phone survey, mailed survey, online survey) will also influence the length of your survey. Test the survey with people similar to those who will complete it, and pay attention to how long it takes and where they become confused or fatigued.

Once you've decided on your method, you can go on to write your questions. We'll talk in more detail about distributing your survey later on.

Example: Historical 1997 Youth Risk Behavioral Survey sampling

The 1997 YRBS used cluster sampling as part of its survey design. In cluster sampling, the population is organized into groups, or clusters, and sampling occurs through those groups rather than by drawing individuals independently from the entire population. Large school-based surveys may use multistage cluster designs because it is more practical to sample schools and classes and then survey students within selected classes. The exact sampling design matters when the results are analyzed and weighted.

Write your questions.

When preparing the questions, bear in mind that they can take many forms. Questions might be:

• Open-ended: Designed to prompt the respondent to provide more than a one- or two-word response. These are often "how" or "why" questions.

For example: "Why is it important to use condoms?" These questions are useful when you want to learn more about what people know, think, experience, or believe. They can provide rich qualitative information. The drawback to using open-ended questions is that their responses usually take more time and judgment to organize and analyze.

• Closed-ended: Questions that ask respondents to select from a set of predetermined response options, which may include yes/no choices.

For example: "Do you use condoms?" These are useful when the information you need is fairly clear-cut, such as whether people use a particular service or have ever heard of a specific local resource.

• Multiple choice: Allow the respondent to select one or more answers from several possible choices, depending on how the question is designed.

For example: "When I have sex, I use condoms... a) every time, b) most times, c) sometimes, d) rarely, e) never." These allow you to find out more detailed information than a simple yes/no question, and the results can be compiled more easily than open-ended responses.

• Likert scale: Each respondent is asked to rate items on a response scale. For instance, they could rate each item on a 1-to-5 response scale where:

1 = strongly disagree

2 = disagree

3 = undecided

4 = agree

5 = strongly agree

You can also use an even-numbered scale without a middle "neutral" or "undecided" choice when there is a clear reason for asking respondents to indicate which direction they lean. Be careful, however, about removing a neutral option simply to force a choice when neutrality or uncertainty may be a meaningful response. How ratings are combined into a final score should depend on what the items are intended to measure.

Example: Using the Likert scale

Here are a few sample survey questions in Likert scale format, done without a neutral category:

Please check the answer indicating your reaction to the questions listed below.

• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree
• Violent crime is a significant problem in my neighborhood
• The police have done enough to prevent crime in my neighborhood.
• If a neighborhood watch program were implemented in my neighborhood, I would participate in it.
• I would be supportive of organized activities for youth in my neighborhood.

The questions you ask depend on the audience you're trying to reach and the information you're trying to obtain.

For example, for demographic information (e.g., questions that determine where people are from, their ages, and their incomes), use response formats that are easy to understand and complete. Include only demographic questions that are relevant to the purpose of the survey, and provide appropriate response options when a question may not apply to everyone.

Creating surveys people will answer with the Total Design Method

Low response can be a major problem with surveys because the people who respond may differ from those who do not. Don Dillman's Total Design Method emphasized designing the entire survey process -- the questionnaire, communications with participants, and follow-up -- to make participation understandable and worthwhile. Survey methods have continued to evolve, and no single response rate should be expected across all populations, topics, and survey modes.

• Mailed questionnaires should be designed so that they are easy to recognize, open, read, complete, and return.
• Keep introductory material clear and avoid making the first page look crowded or intimidating.
• The first question should be directly related to the overall topic of the survey, and it should be something that is easy to answer. Questions that may feel sensitive or intrusive should usually appear after some rapport has been established through easier questions. Demographic questions are often placed later unless they are needed earlier to guide respondents through the survey.
• In layout, avoid cramming too much type onto a single page. Use enough white space to make the survey readable, and try to keep each question and its response options together.
• Keep the questionnaire only as long as necessary to answer your research questions. Test it with members of the intended population to find out how long it actually takes to complete.
• Include a clear invitation or cover letter explaining what you're asking people to do, why you're asking, who should complete the survey, how privacy will be handled, and how the results will be used.
• Personalizing survey communications when appropriate can help people recognize that the request is legitimate and intended for them. Whatever method you use, make sure it does not compromise anonymity or confidentiality that you have promised participants.
• Follow up with people who have not responded when your survey design allows you to know who has and has not participated. Multiple respectful contacts can improve participation, but the timing and number of reminders should fit the population, survey mode, and burden on respondents.

Questions should be worded carefully in order to yield the information you're looking for.

To make sure your survey works the way you want it to, try it out on a few members of the population you're aiming at before you actually distribute it.

Guidelines for writing your survey questions:

• Place easier questions first
• Address sensitive issues as discreetly and sensitively as possible
• Avoid words that provoke bias or emotional responses
• Use a logical order and place similar questions together

Example: Historical 1999 Youth Risk Behavioral Survey questions

Here are a few examples of questions from the 1999 YRBS. They are included as historical examples of how questions in a large standardized survey were structured at that time.

• During the past 30 days, how many times did you ride in a car or other vehicle driven by someone who had been drinking alcohol?

A. 0 times
B. 1 time
C. 2 or 3 times
D. 4 or 5 times
E. 6 or more times

• During the past 12 months, did you ever seriously consider attempting suicide?

A. Yes
B. No

• How old were you when you smoked a whole cigarette for the first time?

A. I have never smoked a whole cigarette
B. 8 years old or younger
C. 9 or 10 years old
D. 11 or 12 years old
E. 13 or 14 years old
F. 15 or 16 years old
G. 17 years old or older

• During your life, how many times have you sniffed glue, breathed the contents of aerosol spray cans, or inhaled any paints or sprays to get high?

A. 0 times
B. 1 or 2 times
C. 3 to 9 times
D. 10 to 19 times
E. 20 to 39 times
F. 40 or more times

• During your life, with how many people have you had sexual intercourse?

A. I have never had sexual intercourse
B. 1 person
C. 2 people
D. 3 people
E. 4 people
F. 5 people
G. 6 or more people

How do you distribute your survey?

There are several strategies for distributing surveys. We'll talk about direct mail in some detail, but there are many methods to choose from and there is no one perfect method. You may want to use a combination of methods.

Here are a few thoughts to help you decide on your method:

• Self-administered questionnaires may work well when respondents can comfortably read and complete the survey in the format provided and when the questions do not require an interviewer to explain them. Paper, online, translated, large-print, screen-reader-compatible, or other accessible formats may be needed depending on the population.
• Phone surveys can be useful when you have adequate telephone coverage for the population you want to reach and reliable ways to contact potential respondents. Don't assume that a landline directory represents the whole community. For questions that people may find sensitive or embarrassing, consider whether a private self-administered method might make respondents more comfortable than answering an interviewer directly.

For example, if you are doing a survey on sexual risk behaviors, some people may be uneasy telling an interviewer how many partners they've had or other such details. A private, self-administered survey may be more comfortable for some respondents.

• Drop boxes can work when you have limited staff or when people already visit locations where surveys can be made available. They are usually best combined with other methods because they reach only people who come to those locations.

Direct mail

Directly mailing your survey to people whose addresses are known is one possible strategy. Mailed surveys may have substantial nonresponse, but response varies greatly according to the population, topic, questionnaire, follow-up, and other features of the survey. Mail can still be useful when you need to reach people who may not have reliable Internet access or when you have an appropriate address-based sampling frame.

• Gather the items you'll need to do a direct mailing:
  • Mailing labels or a mailing list: Use an appropriate, current, and lawfully available address list for the population you intend to survey. Local agencies or public records may sometimes provide suitable lists, depending on the purpose and applicable privacy requirements. If you're using an agency's mailing list, be sure you have appropriate permission and safeguards before doing the mailing.
  • Two business envelopes and two stamps for each participant: One set to send the survey to the participant and one for it to be returned in. The return envelope should be pre-stamped and pre-addressed.
  • One copy of the survey, demographics sheet, and cover letter for each participant.
• Complete the cover letter. A sample cover letter you may want to use as a guide appears in the Examples section.
• Make enough copies of the survey, demographic sheet, and cover letter for each survey recipient.
• Prepare the two business-size envelopes for each person. One should have the agency's return address and a mailing label for the survey participant; the other should have the agency's address listed as both the mailing and the return addresses. Stamp both envelopes.
• Stuff the envelopes that have the recipient's mailing address with all the survey materials -- the survey, the demographic sheet, the cover letter, and the return envelope.
• If you want to track survey responses in any way -- trying to see what sort of answers you get from different parts of town, for example -- plan carefully how you will do so while protecting respondents' privacy. If you assign codes that can be connected to individuals or addresses, participants should not be told that the survey is anonymous. Keep identifying information secure and separate from survey responses whenever possible.
• Mail them out! Check current postal options to determine the most practical rate and mailing method.
• If the response is too low to meet your needs, try one or more of the following strategies:
  • Send a reminder to people who have not responded, if your survey design allows you to know who they are.
  • Contact the local newspaper and request an article on the survey, submit a letter to the editor about it, or publish an announcement about the survey. This can also be done before you send out the survey.
  • Contact radio stations to run announcements inviting people to take part in the survey.
  • Invite community members to participate in the survey through announcements in local agency newsletters, consumer group meetings, public community events, and other appropriate communication channels.
  • Post announcements of the survey in public places, like the library or grocery stores.

Interviews and phone surveys

For people who have difficulty reading or using the survey format you've chosen, or for surveys that require more in-depth answers, interviews might be appropriate. Phone surveys work similarly to face-to-face interviews in many respects, so we've grouped these two methods together.

• Put together a team of interviewers. The people you choose should be able to answer reasonable questions respondents might have and should be able to communicate respectfully with the range of people included in your sample. People with interviewing or community-engagement experience may be especially helpful.
• Train the interviewers to act as a team. They should all be given the same information about the survey, its purpose, and your organization or initiative to make sure that the information they pass on to respondents is consistent.
• For a phone survey, use a sampling method that gives you appropriate coverage of the population you want to reach. Relying only on a landline telephone directory may leave out substantial parts of the population. For a formal survey, you may need to work with someone experienced in survey sampling.
• Phone interviewers should be polite, call during reasonable hours unless another time has been arranged, and consistently ask the survey questions according to the survey protocol.

Drop boxes

At agencies that have relatively frequent contact with participants or community members, setting up a drop box in their offices may be a useful way to distribute and collect surveys. This may also be a good option for agencies that have an incomplete mailing list. It can help reach people who have little contact with your group or agency but who use another community service. However, if you use this method of distributing surveys, consider using it along with at least one other method of distribution, because only those already using those locations or services can respond.

Media distribution

For general distribution, publishing a survey or survey invitation in the local paper, attaching it to your newsletter, or sharing it through other community communication channels might be useful. Keep in mind that an open survey distributed this way is self-selected and should not automatically be treated as representative of the whole community.

Convenience sampling

Taking surveys in a public place -- setting up a booth or table in the parking lot at a local discount store, on the sidewalk in the shopping district, etc. -- provides an opportunity to gather input and get some exposure for your organization. Because the people available at a particular place and time may differ from the broader population, convenience samples should generally be described as input from the people surveyed rather than as a statistically representative picture of the whole community.

Group administration

If your group or organization tends to have large group gatherings, providing surveys to everyone who attends a particular gathering might be an efficient way for you to gather information. Examples of gatherings where you might want to distribute your survey would include: immunization clinics, commodity food distribution sites, health fairs, and meal sites for older adults. If you want to give your survey out at some sort of group meeting or gathering, get the group's director to put you on the agenda. At the meeting, introduce yourself and explain the purpose of the survey. Then distribute the survey, answer any questions, and collect completed surveys. Don't forget to thank everyone for their participation!

Using multiple methods of distribution

You can combine or adapt two or more of the above methods to suit your own purposes, if you'd like. If more than one method is used, make clear whether each community member should complete the survey only once, and use whatever safeguards are appropriate to reduce duplicate responses without compromising promised anonymity or confidentiality.

Collecting the surveys

Soon after the surveys are distributed, some of them will begin to arrive at the sponsoring organization. Here are the steps you should take to collect your surveys:

• Gather incoming surveys collected at participating sites. A representative of your organization should collect incoming surveys as they arrive in the mail or your drop box. They should also call or stop by collection sites from time to time to pick up any surveys that have been dropped off.
• Review returned surveys and decide how incomplete responses will be handled in the analysis. If any surveys were returned because of an improper mailing address, try to find the correct address and mail it out again, if appropriate.
• If response is insufficient, use appropriate follow-up and outreach strategies. Simply increasing the number of invitations does not necessarily correct nonresponse or underrepresentation, so consider which groups are missing and whether another method of reaching them is needed.

Example: Historical administration and collection of the 1997 Youth Risk Behavioral Survey

The CDC wanted to protect students' privacy and encourage honest responses while completing the 1997 YRBS. The survey was administered voluntarily and anonymously as a self-administered written questionnaire containing 84 multiple-choice questions. Parental permission followed the procedures required by participating schools. Students recorded their responses on computer-scannable answer sheets, further protecting anonymity. This example reflects the survey procedures used at that time.

How do you analyze and compile the results of your survey?

Now that you've gathered the completed surveys, you'll need to figure out the results. Sometimes all you have to do is tabulate the results -- that is, add them up and display them in a table.

For instance, if 100 questionnaires were returned in a survey about problems in the neighborhood, you can start by counting the answers. Let's say that there was a question asking what people felt was the biggest challenge facing the neighborhood; 70 people mentioned law enforcement, 10 cited transportation, 15 marked potholes, and 5 said noise. The pattern among those 100 respondents is clear. Whether those percentages can be generalized to the whole neighborhood depends on how those respondents were selected and who did or did not respond.

However, analysis can be far more complicated than that. If you're looking,

for instance, at how people feel about a service or problem, you may end up with a lot of answers to open-ended questions that are apparently unrelated. In this case, you will need to try to find patterns and themes.

Once you've done that, what do these numbers mean? Well, you will need to look at the overall survey to see how each percentage compares to the others, while keeping the survey design and limitations in mind.

For example, what questions had the highest proportions of similar responses?

We suggest that you write up a brief report summarizing the results of the survey. In your report, look for any patterns -- do people in a particular part of town feel more strongly about a particular issue than those in other areas? When comparing smaller groups, be cautious about drawing strong conclusions from very small numbers of respondents.

Share this information with your staff and community partners as appropriate. Get their feedback and discuss whether any further surveying or analysis needs to be done before completing the report.

Now that you've figured out what the results mean, you need to decide what to do with them. To whom are you going to communicate them, and how? In the case of a community initiative, results should be shared in a timely and understandable way while protecting respondents' privacy and accurately describing the survey's limitations. If other similar surveys have been done in the same area, you may want to compare your results with those surveys when the questions, populations, and methods are sufficiently similar.

An organization conducting a survey about its services might want to use results to provide a better service or to change a current policy or practice. In a situation where funding is at stake, the results may be shared with a funder to demonstrate needs, experiences, or outcomes supported by the survey. The results could also be used by the organization itself to determine where and what kinds of services are needed.

The 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey results provide a historical example of what a formal survey results report can look like.

In Summary

A well-executed survey can provide your initiative with a wealth of information about your constituents and their needs. The usefulness of the results depends not only on the questions you ask, but also on whom you survey, how they are selected and contacted, who responds, and how carefully you analyze and describe the findings. We hope this section has given you the tools you need to conduct surveys that are effective and that give you the information you need to serve your constituents better!