Qualtrics University

This is a link to a very useful set of information about designing and conducting surveys, from Qualtrics.com: web-survey software previously mentioned on the blog here. I found particularly interesting this page on "How to Increase Survey Response". The topics covered include:

- Using Exchange and Incentives to Increase Online Survey Response Rates
- Using Cognitive Dissonance to Increase Online Survey Response Rates
- Using Self-Perception to Increase Online Survey Response Rates
- Using Commitment and Involvement to Increase Online Survey Response Rates

Here you can read an interview with Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics Survey Software, about increasing response rates in surveys.

Doing Surveys Online

Various ways of doing surveys online were discussed earlier this year on this blog. MMIC, Survey Gizmo and Lime Survey were all mentioned. MMIC™ (Multimode Interviewing Capability) is a comprehensive information system developed by the RAND Corporation. Survey Gizmo is similar to its competitor Survey Monkey, a package which people are most likely to be familar with. What makes Lime Survey different is that it is open-source, in other words completely free.

Recently, myself and Peter have been doing further research into different possibilities for doing surveys online. In particular, we wanted a package that would allow us to present feedback at the end of the survey, in a dashboard-type format, based on the answers provided by the survey repondent. We played around with various options, including:
(i) http://www.instantsurvey.com
(ii) http://www.vovici.com
(iii) http://www.mineful.com
(iv) http://www.keysurvey.com
(v) http://www.premiersurvey.com
(vi) http://www.zoomerang.com
(vii) http://www.unipark.info

However, our search came to an end when we found Qualtrics. As well as allowing a sophisticated feedback mechanism, Qualtrics has really useful "display option", "skip option" and randomisation features that can be used in the survey design. In the current survey-project that we have developed, we use the "display option" to ensure that a certain question only gets displayed if the respondent answers "Yes" to a previous (corresponding) question. In their own words, Qualtrics describe themselves as "easy enough for an intern and sophisticated enough for a Ph.D."

Websurvey tools

We are converted MMIC users in our research group and are currently very comfortable with its features for doing experiments and so on. American Evaluation Twitter page link to surveygizmo . Worth having a look at this to see whether it has useful features above what your own web package can do.