SATISFACTION SURVEYS CAN EFFECTIVELY gather information about a training session, how employees feel about their jobs or whether or not people like a product... if they are developed and used correctly. Creating an effective satisfaction survey involves much more than just throwing a few questions onto paper and asking people to respond. If you want to be able to use the information to help you make effective changes you need to make sure the feedback you get really answers the critical questions you need to know.

It is much easier to keep an existing customer or employee than to find a new one. People will not continue to buy products that do not meet their needs. Employees will leave jobs where they feel under appreciated, overworked or insecure. Satisfaction surveys provide you with a tool for uncovering areas that need improvement. Spend some time educating yourself about satisfaction surveys. The Internet and professional journals are both good resources.

This image displays the steps to developing an effective satisfaction survey.

1. Establish goals of the project by asking the question, “What do I want to learn?” Brainstorm critical areas of concern to address. Example: You are conducting a new training session on a topic that requires people’s maximum attention. “What do I want to learn?” You want to learn what causes them to stop paying attention. Is it too fast, slow, boring, long? (Creative Research Systems, 2005)

2. Identify the structure of the survey by deciding on the type of response to receive, frequency of use, length, number of people to survey and costs involved. Surveys that are too long might keep people from answering them accurately as they speed through responses just to get finished. A survey with fifteen to twenty items is generally a good place to start. If it needs to be longer, make sure the questions are relevant to the goals.


Watch the movie to learn more about the most common types of survey items
3. Design the survey items in direct relation to the established goals. First decide on the type of items that will elicit the responses you desire (Fontenot, 2005). See the movie next to this step for further information on the most common types of survey items. Then, develop items that gather the information you need. Keep it simple by making sure the wording is clear and concise (Pahlkotter, 2005).

4. Test a prototype of the survey after you have created it. Ask at least 5+ people to take the survey and give detailed feedback. Was there anything that needs clarification? Did items and answers make sense? If answers were provided, did those answers cover the possibilities (QuestionPro, 2004)? Make sure you record questions asked during the testing session. Then, make appropriate adjustments. You may want to do further testing.

5. Implement your survey. You should continue to elicit feedback and improve your survey as needed. However, if you plan to track results year to year, try to keep major changes to a minimum. In this case, the prototype testing will be an extremely important phase.

Too many completed surveys get crammed into a file drawer with plans to look at them later, “When I have time.” This is the perfect opportunity to use critical feedback to make improvements. The first question to ask is, “Did the results directly relate to my original goals?” If the answers you received tell you nothing about the original goals you had for the survey, then it is time for some revisions. Look for patterns. Putting the information into a spreadsheet to create visual representations will make it easier to understand. At the very least, reading through each survey will allow you to identify areas that need attention.

Robin Orloski, Graduate Student
SDSU Educational Technology

Orloski, R. (2005). Developing effective satisfaction surveys.

In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology.