safety alertalert exclamation

If you are in danger, please use a safer computer, call 911 or your local hotline or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233 voice), 1-800-787-3224 (tty). There is always a computer trail, but you can click ESCAPE to leave the site quickly.

A survey is a written set of questions used to collect information. A survey offers flexibility in the kind of information collected. Moreover, it allows for a large amount of information to be collected fairly easily from a potentially large number of people. A survey can include two kinds of questions: closed and open-ended. Closed questions allow respondents to select an answer from a fixed set of responses. Open-ended questions, on the other hand, allow respondents to answer a question using their own words. While open-ended questions provide more information, they can be difficult to enter and analyze.

When to Use

A survey should be used if your collaboration needs to get a lot of statistical information from a large number of people.

Benefits

  • They make it possible to question large numbers of people at the same time.
  • They can collect a lot of information – especially statistical information.
  • They can be completed anonymously, which may increase the response rate. Plus, respondents' answers may be more direct and sincere.
  • They are relatively easy to analyze.

Drawbacks

  • It can be difficult to get a good response rate. Potential respondents may not understand the importance of completing the survey and may never respond.
  • They may not tell the full story. Surveys do not allow for extensive exploration into a particular issue.
  • Formulating quality, non-biased questions for a survey requires expertise and preparation, which may be time and resource intensive.

For More Information