Designing effective surveys is critical for collecting data you can actually use, especially in education and healthcare, where decisions often rely on nuanced feedback from learners, professionals, or stakeholders.
Yet far too often, surveys are created without a clear process, leading to vague questions, poor response rates, and unreliable results.
A Practical Guide for Survey Success
That’s why we wrote Developing Questionnaires for Educational Research: AMEE Guide No. 87. This popular, evidence-informed guide lays out a 7-step method for creating tailored questionnaires that actually work.
Key elements of the guide include:
- Reviewing the literature to define your construct
- Conducting interviews or focus groups with your target population
- Writing, refining, and piloting items using expert reviews and cognitive interviewing
- Evaluating reliability and validity before implementation
The result? Survey data that are more valid, more reliable, and far more useful.
Why It Matters
In the absence of a systematic approach, many surveys yield misleading data, making it harder to justify decisions, defend findings, or publish results. Our guide provides a structure that not only improves your survey but strengthens your entire research or evaluation effort.
If you’re building a new instrument or revising an existing one, we’d be glad to help.
