Research Survey Basics: Best Practices from GLG

A research survey is a great tool for gaining insight into specific topics, industries, companies, or populations. To make sure that you use surveys productively, you need to select the right type of survey.

In our article What Type of Survey Do You Need? you’ll learn six of the most common types of surveys and what they can help you learn.

To get good data — or any data, for that matter — people must first take your survey. What is the trick to getting people to take your survey? Meet them on their turf.

Read Surveying Basics: The Right Way to Reach Respondents to learn about the four most prevalent types of surveys and the pros and cons of each.

Conducting a survey as part of your data collection can give you richer insights. They are a great way to get a high volume of data when a larger sample size is critical.

Read The 6 Pillars of Successful Survey Design to learn how to maximize the insights you glean from your data.

There are three basic categories of questions — single-select, multi-select, and open-ended questions. But remember, it is better to have multiple simple questions than to have one complex question.

GLG’s Types of Survey Questions and When to Use Them article digs deeper into the question types, common combinations, and rules of thumb for writing questions.

A survey is only as good as its respondents’ answers. That’s why it’s a smart practice to build quality checks into your survey.

The Using Quality Checks to Improve Your Survey Data article breaks down the types of quality checks you can use to improve the quality of your survey results.

Sometimes you need a statistically significant sample size to inform your decision-making process. However, hard-to-reach populations or tight budgets can make this difficult.

GLG’s article When Statistical Significance Just Isn’t…Significant reveals that the directional data you can get from smaller sample sizes is often enough to help you feel confident in your results.