Surveys: An Introduction

When it comes to collecting research for a report, the best kind of data is original – something new, something incredibly specific to the situation, something nobody else has seen or discovered.

You can collect that sort of information or research very simply with a survey, a set of questions designed to gather the responses of (usually) a group of people in order to collect data for analysis of a problem or issue.

The article “10 Different Types of Survey Methods + Pros & Cons” Links to an external site. identifies the following types of surveys:

• Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Panel Sampling
• Telephone Surveys
• Post-Call Surveys
• Mail-in Surveys
• Kiosk Surveys
• Online Surveys
• Pop-Up Surveys
• Mobile Surveys

This is an imposing list, but the two types of surveys with which you might work when gathering data for the recommendation report are online surveys and interviews. Particularly since your subjects all deal with issues or problems affecting the VT community, these types of surveys will be relatively easy for you to deploy to various listservs (and even, in the case of one group, VT-based Reddit groups).

But how do you create a survey? What sorts of questions should you ask? This module will provide you with some basic tips.

First, Check out a Sample Survey Links to an external site.