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Survey Design: Best Practices for Beginners

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When surveying users, it is important to construct the survey so that meaningful results can be obtained, analyzed, and reported. In this class you will learn how to design a survey against an objective and analyze and report results.

Learning Objectives

- How to strategically plan your survey
- Understand the best practices for survey design
- Review collection techniques to get the best response rate
- How to analyze, present and share the findings
- Determine which online tool is best for your survey

Topics Covered

Planning
- Formulating the problem or question to be answered
- Determining the research approach
- Setting objectives for information collection

Design
- Choosing a collection method (Qualtrics, Google Forms, or SurveyMonkey)
- Tips for good visual design
- Types of questions/response alternatives
- Pretesting and pilot testing
- Pitfalls to avoid
- Good question test - is it clear, easy answerable, unbiased?

Collection
- Collecting responses
- Statistical significance
- Improving response rates and retention

Analysis & Reporting
- Filtering and customizing results
- Sharing results

Custom training workshops are available for this program

Technology training sessions structured around individual or group learning objectives. Learn more about custom training


University IT Technology Training sessions are available to a wide range of participants, including Stanford University staff, faculty, students, and employees of Stanford Hospitals & Clinics, such as Stanford Health Care, Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, Stanford Medicine Partners, and Stanford Medicine Children's Health.

Additionally, some of these programs are open to interested individuals not affiliated with Stanford, allowing for broader community engagement and learning opportunities.