What are Survey Design Best Practices? Survey design best practices are proven principles and guidelines that ensure a survey is user-friendly, inclusive, and scientifically sound. They include structuring questions in a logical,...
Demographic Questions: Finding the Right Place in Your Survey
Demographic questions are often necessary to include in survey research. Here we visit the age-old question–where in the survey should they go? Recently a collaborator designing a survey for an academic research study asked if it...
How Long Should a Survey Questionnaire Be?
When designing a survey questionnaire, there are guidelines to consider regarding its length, including: 1. The purpose of the survey If the survey is designed to collect detailed information from respondents, it may need to be longer to capture what is needed. 2....
5 Survey Methodology Considerations for Socials Scientists Today
Survey research is an essential tool for social scientists, allowing them to collect data and insights from many people. To conduct a successful survey, there are several vital considerations regarding survey methodology that researchers must take into account. These...
Satisficing: Why Survey Participants Give Quick, Inaccurate Answers
In a previous post we discussed how to minimize survey breakoff. Surveys are a great way to collect data but when designing a survey it’s important to consider how much is too much. Today we are going to discuss satisficing, how to keep respondents engaged, and in...
Good Surveys Come With Subtraction, Not Addition: How Questionnaire Length Leads to Breakoffs
We often hear—so how long can our questionnaire be? While we love surveys, the reality is most respondents don’t share our enthusiasm, which means long questionnaires can be bad for data quality. Today we are going to look at how long surveys can lead to breakoff, and...
Graduate Student Collaborates with SoundRocket on Survey Creation and Data Collection for Thesis Paper
"The piece that has made my thesis and my study unique is being able to survey a representative sample of the U.S. population. This was made possible because of SoundRocket,” says Gabi. Gabriela (Gabi) Wen Hsuan Chen is currently a graduate student at the University...
Introducing Error Through Use of Web Survey Progress Indicators
In 1998, fascinated with the potential for the web to serve as a data collection platform, I wondered what sources of error may crop up with this new technology. Not surprisingly, we noticed early on that if participants did not finish a web-based survey in one...
How to Prepare and Conduct Live Televideo Interviews – Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two-part series; to begin at the beginning, check out How to Prepare and Conduct Live Televideo Interviews - Part 1. Over the past year, our team at SoundRocket has been conducting ‘pandemic-friendly’ Live Televideo Interviews (LTIs) on Zoom. After...








