SURVEY DESIGN: MOTIVATION UNDERSTANDING & EASE OF COMPLETION Damon Burton University of Idaho University of Idaho

How can we best motivate respondents to complete the survey and provide quality responses?

MOTIVATION IN 6 COMPONENTS OF SURVEY Size of survey, Sponsor letter, Informed consent, General instructions, Ease of understanding & completion, Sequencing of survey components.

SIZE OF SURVEY Respondents are motivated to complete surveys that are reasonable in length. If surveys are short, you should have motivated respondents, even though typically we want to cram in more rather than fewer questions. If surveys are long, make them seem short. For mail surveys, size and weight should be minimized (i.e., booklet format is smaller, lighter and seems shorter). For online surveys, eliminate the progress bar, limit to 10 questions per page to eliminate scrolling, and work from harder to easier questions to reduce fatigue.

SPONSOR LETTER 1. Provide a strong rationale for why study is important. 2. If possible, tie into interests of the respondent. 3. Enhance autonomy by reinforcing that they can be part of the decision-making process through their input. 4. Convince them that responding is safe because they are anonymous or their data is totally confidential. 5. Provide incentives (i.e., money up front) but other incentives are powerful too. Sometimes an opportunity to get a copy of study results is a powerful incentive.

INFORMED CONSENT 1. Keep Informed Consent to 1 page, including check box. 2. Cover all rights and safeguards but keep it brief. 3. IRB has confirmed your protocol, so just tell respondents enough to make them feel secure. 4. Emphasize how much of a contribution that they are making to the process.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS 1. For instruments that focus on respondents’ perceptions, emphasize No right or wrong answer, Put down first thing that pops into their head, and Read questions carefully. 2. For surveys that contain a wide variety of questions, emphasize Read questions thoroughly, Recall as accurately as possible, and Follow directions carefully.

UNDERSTANDING & COMPLETION EASE 1. For long instruments, put responses beside question. Format is much faster than responses below. Easy to get into a good rhythm because responses options remain the same. Use the 60%/40% rule, with question taking up 60% of width of page and responses 40%. 5

UNDERSTANDING & COMPLETION EASE 2. For long surveys, question type should be group to enhance response speed. Put most important information first and less important questions later on. Put different types of questions into separate sections. Evaluate sequencing to enhance flow and speed up response time. 5

SEQUENCING OF SECTIONS 1. Always put demographic information last. 2. Separate different instruments or components of the survey into unique sections. 3. Put the most important information first and less information later. The good stuff will hopefully enhance motivation. If respondents don’t finish the survey, you may still have useable info to analyze. If they like the good stuff, it’ll make completing the less interesting more likely.