Create a Survey About an Important Issue

It may sound a little lame, but if you choose your topic well, surveys can be very powerful and even increase awareness. And once you are done, you have something to show for your work. Your survey results give you information about what people think and believe about specific issues/topics, and information is power.

Choose the Issue

Listen to what bothers people at your school or in your community. Or choose a topic that you think people should know about. It doesn't matter what you choose as long as you are specific. Just be sure you know what information you want to gather from the survey.

Choose the type of Survey

There are two types of surveys: Questionnaires and Interviews

Pick some People

Get friends, classmates, teachers, or even parents to help you create and get results for your survey. Be sure to choose people that you can work with and talk to.

Make the thing

Tips on creating the survey:

• Keep the survey as short as possible, asking only those questions that will provide the information you need.
• Use a casual, conversational style, making the questions easy for almost anyone to understand.
• Structure the survey so that the questions follow a logical order – i.e. from general to specific.
• Start with information about who is taking the survey. Example:
  
  Describe yourself: Teacher – Student – Staff -- Other
  
  If you answered student, what grade are you in: 5-7 8-10 11-12

The questions

Types of questions:

• Specific multiple choice questions with three to five possible answers given. (No more than five.)
• Ranking scale questions:
  

  1	2	3	4	5
  strongly disagree	disagree	neutral	agree	strongly agree

• Opinion and awareness:
  
  On a scale from one to ten (ten being the highest), how much do you know about...
  
  On a scale from one to ten (ten being interested, one being really bored), what do you think about...
  
  Note: When using the rating scale, use the same rating scale throughout your survey for questions requiring the respondent to rate items. For example, if the scale is from one to five, with five being the most positive, keep that same scale for all of the questions requiring a rating.

Tips on questions:

• Use multiple-choice questions whenever possible. This helps the respondent to better understand the purpose of your question and will reduce the time it takes to complete the questionnaire.
• Avoid leading questions that might generate false positive responses. For example, the question "How great was the service provided by our excellent school cafeteria staff?" should be "How was the service provided by the school cafeteria staff?"
• A good survey should NOT have more than 15 questions or people will get bored. Questions should allow people to choose what they think and not tell them what to think.
  
  Bad question: Why does lunch on Monday stink so much?
  
  Good question: On a scale from 1-10 (10 being tasty, 1 being not so tasty), rate lunch on: Monday -- Tuesday -- Wednesday -- Thursday -- Friday

Before you go live

Test the survey on ten to 15 people before you produce it for mass distribution. Conduct an interview with each of those respondents after he or she completes the survey to determine if your questions were easily understood and easy to answer.

It’s a good idea to include a cover letter or introduction with the survey. Let the recipient know what you’re trying to accomplish with the survey and how valued his or her response is.

If possible, entice recipients to respond by offering an incentive. Use the responses as an entry form for a prize drawing.

Provide easy to follow directions.

Distribute your survey

Distribute your survey in school or in your community. Get the results and summarize them in one page. This is easy if you tally or compile your results for each question and present it on a spread sheet or table.

What's next?

Bring your survey to a school board or town hall meeting (depending on what your survey is about) and share your results with people there.

Tell Do Something about it!

Check out some sample surveys

You don't have to take the surveys. Just look at the types of questions to help you create your own. Note: You can take the surveys if you want.

Check out these surveys at:

Canadian Youth Smoking Survey

College Voting Survey