Surveys That Work

Surveys That Work explains a seven-step process for designing, running, and reporting on a survey that gets accurate results. In a no-nonsense style with plenty of examples about real&ndashworld compromises, the book focuses on reducing the errors that make up Total Survey Error--a key concept in survey methodology. If you are conducting a survey, this book is a must-have.

This book addresses the needs of researchers who want to conduct surveys online. Issues discussed include sampling from online populations, developing online and mobile questionnaires, and administering electronic surveys, are unique to digital surveys. Others, like creating reliable and valid survey questions, data analysis strategies, and writing the survey report, are common to all survey environments. This single resource captures the particulars of conducting digital surveys from start to finish

Instead of using expensive off-the-shelf surveys or relying on a poorly worded survey, read Making Surveys Work for Your Library and design your own that collect actionable data. Library listservs and websites are littered with examples of surveys that are too long, freighted with complex language, and generally poorly designed. The survey, however, is a widely used tool that has great potential if designed well. Libraries can implement surveys for a variety of purposes, including planning, program evaluation, collection development, and space design. Making Surveys Work for Your Library: Guidance, Instructions, and Examples offers librarians a contemporary and practical approach to creating surveys that answer authentic questions about library users. Miller and Hinnant have experience designing, deploying, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from large-scale, web-based user surveys of library patrons as well as smaller survey instruments targeted to special populations. Here, they offer library professionals a guide to developing—and examples of—concise surveys that gather the data they need to make evidence-based decisions, define the scope of future research, and understand their patrons.

This valuable guide provides detailed instructions for each step of the survey process, from choosing the right topic to designing the survey, selecting and working with the respondents, and making sense of all the data.

Written with the needs and goals of a novice researcher in mind, this fully updated third edition provides an accurate account of how modern survey research is actually conducted. In addition to providing examples of alternative procedures, Designing Surveys shows how classic principles and recent research guide decision-making from setting the basic features of the survey through development, testing, and data collection.

A bored twenty-three-year-old woman suddenly leaves her dull suburban job for L.A., becomes Internet-famous, and falls in love—Zelda to a semi-famous Scott. One day, I was not famous, the next day, I was almost famous and the temptation to go wide with that and reject my past was too great. When I was legit famous, it was hard to tell when the change had occurred... If I had been born famous, the moment I would have started engaging in social media, I would have seen this fame, not the rise of it. But first I saw the low numbers, and later, the high ones. —from Surveys Wryly mirroring the classic, female coming-of-age narrative, Natasha Stagg's debut traces a few months in the life of Colleen, a twenty-three-year-old woman with almost no attachments or aspirations for her life. Working at an unsatisfying mall job in Tucson, Colleen sleepwalks through depressing office politics and tiresome one-night stands in a desultory way, becoming fully alive only at night when she's online. Colleen attains ambiguous Internet stardom when she's discovered by Jim, a semi-famous icon of masculinity and reclusiveness. When Colleen quits her job and moves to meet Jim in Los Angeles, she immediately falls in love and begins a new life of whirlwind parties and sponsored events. The pair's relationship, launched online, makes them the Scott and Zelda of their generation, and they tour the country, cashing in on the buzz surrounding their romance. But as their fame expands, Colleen's jealousy grows obsessive.

Achieve your survey goals by empowering your survey respondents. Too often, surveys are designed for the analyst, rather than the respondent. This book challenges the status quo by putting respondents’ needs at the heart of survey development. It encourages you to stop, listen, and then design to improve response rates and collect high quality data. Drawing on their experience at the UK Office for National Statistics, the authors: Show you how to design better surveys by combining social research and user experience best practice. Equip you with the tools to design inclusive and accessible surveys. Enable you to overcome practical research problems, including managing participant recruitment, and working to any budget. Provide links to helpful web material and further reading as part of the book′s online resources. Promoting a new way to conceptualise and conduct survey design, this book expands your theoretical thinking and shows you, step-by-step, how to put it into practice.

The easy way to build effective online surveys for your business, with three months of free service! By targeting select response groups, online surveys are a great way to help your business, group, or organization get valuable feedback quickly. But with over 40 vendors and hundreds of options available, where do you start? This friendly book walks you step by step through the process of creating, launching, and getting results from an online survey. You'll learn about the tools involved, what results to expect, how to build a compelling survey, tips for identifying the right audience, and how to analyze the results. Discover What a survey is and how to put one together Survey lingo and a sample survey to study How to develop questions and assemble them into an attractive, easy-to-use interface that encourages response Tips for identifying and contacting the respondents you want to hear from The steps involved in making a usable analysis of the results Pitfalls to avoid, things to check out before launching a survey, and best practices With the book, you'll also receive three months of free service from a top survey vendor to get you started.