One of the main ways institutions learn about visitors’ experiences and opinions is through a post-visit survey. A properly administered survey can shed light on a variety of important topics, starting with the things you directly ask about (e.g., the quality of the student ambassadors and other staff, a student’s feelings about your institution after visiting, or the reason for visiting) and leading to the trends you can uncover (e.g., changes in what draws visitors to your campus, yield patterns, or consistency in the quality of your student ambassadors and staff).
The degree to which schools use surveys effectively to gain insight varies wildly, as do the format, length, and type of questions asked. Despite individual needs for surveys, there are key elements of a good survey that should be present. This tool is intended to provide necessary guidance to write a new survey from scratch or to revise an existing survey to better measure the information desired. It contains a four-step process for writing questions and an appendix resource with common question types.
This resource is part of the Improve the Campus Visit Experience Roadmap. Access the Roadmap for stepwise guidance with additional tools and research.
Before writing a single question, you need to brainstorm the answers you want to get from visitors. It is easy to dive into the actual question writing without really knowing what the end goal is, but the best surveys are built from an understanding of the desired output.
Using your answer brainstorm from the previous step, begin to craft questions that would help you get at the information you want to have. There may be multiple formats that do this, so you will need to decide which version is best. You may want to consider the formats of other questions on your survey, the length of the survey, and the type of analysis you want to be able to do with the answers you receive.
There are many different considerations that should inform the timing, manner, and possible rewards for your post-visit surveys. While our guidance is far from exhaustive, it gives you some central considerations that will help you make the choices that best support your institutional goals.
Even the most carefully crafted survey questions need to be tested. We recommend battle-testing your new questions in three phases to ensure they gather only the information you want and do so clearly and concisely.
This is a non-exhaustive list of question types that are typically used on post-visit and post-event surveys, arranged from the most restrictive to the least restrictive types. This can serve as a reference and a point of inspiration as you draft your own surveys.
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