📚️ Optimizing Survey Length | Basecamp Wednesdays | March 29th 2023 | XM Community
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What is Basecamp Wednesdays?

 

Every Wednesday we will look at different topics discussed on XM Basecamp and provide a brief description of the Basecamp resource.

Whether you’re just getting started on your XM journey or ready to take your program to the next level, this weekly series is meant to help all users find Basecamp resources. 

 

Basecamp Wednesdays | March 29th 2023

 

Topic: Optimizing Survey Length

 

When taking a survey, the longer you spend answering questions, the less motivated you are to finish the survey, this applies to your own surveys as well.

 

Survey length is an important factor to consider when designing your surveys because too long of a survey can lead to decreased motivation, less attentive behavior, and even survey abandonment. However, attempting to shorten your surveys too much can lead to double-barreled or other biased questions and you run the risk of not collecting enough information.

 

While optimal survey length depends on factors such as motivation, incentives, and question types, our data suggest that surveys longer than 12 minutes start to see substantial levels of respondent break-off.

 

Learn more about how to optimize your surveys to be as short as possible while still collecting reliable & quality data!

 

Where to find this course:

  1. Go to XM Basecamp.
  2. Search for Applying Best Practices in Questionnaire Design.
  3. Click Register.
  4. Find the Selecting the Ideal Survey Length section.

 

Basecamp Video Link: Selecting the Ideal Survey Length

Qualtrics Support Page: Survey Methodology & Compliance Best Practices 

Questions of the Week: What is the longest survey you’ve created? What is the longest survey you have completed as a respondent?

I work for a school district and the longest survey I have ever created was for special education/IEP updating and staff calculation counts.  It serves a couple different purposes for our district, so it is quite lengthy!  Although it is long, the staff that complete it are verifying IEPs that need updates, making sure staff time is allocated appropriately, monitoring enrollment counts for programs offsite, and more, so if they had to do all of those actions separately, they would have many more surveys to complete.

I work for a school district and the longest survey I have ever created was for special education/IEP updating and staff calculation counts.  It serves a couple different purposes for our district, so it is quite lengthy!  Although it is long, the staff that complete it are verifying IEPs that need updates, making sure staff time is allocated appropriately, monitoring enrollment counts for programs offsite, and more, so if they had to do all of those actions separately, they would have many more surveys to complete.

Ah I see, in this case it seems to be a necessary evil by having a slightly longer survey than multiple short surveys. I would absolutely want to take a longer survey if it meant I was done with the process after submitting it. 😊

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