Feedback surveys can be great ways to gather information about the success of your training. However, you can also easily fall into the trap of collecting meaningless data points. This blog will help you avoid mistakes in survey writing and craft a survey that helps you demonstrate success to your leadership.
mistake #1
🥇 Questions that aren’t aligned with organizational goals
Feedback surveys can be a great way to demonstrate success to leadership, but only if they are tied to goals set by the organization.
For example, let’s say your company has a goal to increase positive responses to the employee engagement survey question, “my company provides learning opportunities to help me develop professionally.”
You want to make sure your survey ties to this goal. For example, you might ask:
- This course was valuable to my professional development.
If your questions don’t tie to a goal(s) set by your training organization or company, the data gathered will not be a useful metric for success.
mistake #2
🤔 Double Barreled Questions
A double barreled question is asking two questions but only allowing for one response. Typically a double barreled question can be identified by the presence of "and" in a question.
- I enjoyed the individual activities and the group discussion.
How would a participant answer the question if they enjoyed the individual activities but not the group discussion?
There are two ways to correct a double barreled question.
First, you can break the question up into two parts:
- I enjoyed the individual activities.
- I enjoyed the group discussion.
Alternatively, try to devise one question that broadly captures the same information:
- The blend of individual activities and group discussion was an effective format for learning.
mistake #3
😫 Too many questions
Survey fatigue is the lack of motivation to begin or finish a survey that’s too long.
You want to keep the survey short and contextual, as well as providing an estimated time for survey completion:
- This survey has 5 questions and should take 2-3 minutes to complete.
Secondly, you want to tell the survey participants how you will use the information from the survey:
- Survey data is used to ensure our training team is providing an excellent onboarding experience. Any feedback to improve will be integrated prior to the next training class.
Finally, provide updates on actions taken. When your participants can see that you listened to and acted on feedback, they will be more likely to fill out surveys in the future:
- Based on feedback from our previous training classes, we have shortened the time for individual activities to make more time for the group discussions.
mistake #4
🚶♀️Leading or loading questions.
A leading question is intended to lead people to answer the question in a specific way:
- Do you enjoy the amazing courses offered in the learning management system?
By putting the word amazing, you are leading the respondent to say “yes.” It makes them feel guilty to say no.
Loaded questions contain an assumption about the survey taker:
- How much do you enjoy taking courses in the learning management system?
This assumes that they enjoy taking the courses. It gives them no option if they don’t feel that way.
mistake #5
😥 Questions filled with jargonJargon includes any words, expressions, or acronyms used by a group that are difficult for those outside the group to understand:
- The information I learned in this course will help me achieve my OKRs.
- The information I learned in this course will help me achieve my goals.