Educational Surveys such as Course Evaluations and Student Evaluations are key components when determining your Institution’s effectiveness.  Due to the many research needs for educational environments, it is important that you select the right survey software solution for your questionnaires.

Types of Educational Surveys Include:

• Instructor Evaluations
• Course Evaluations
• Student Evaluations
• Faculty Surveys
• Parent Surveys
• Testing Surveys
• Assessments
• Alumni Surveys
• Department Surveys
• Institutional Research Surveys
• Staff Satisfaction Surveys
• Student Satisfaction Surveys
• Longitudinal Surveys

Before selecting your software you will also want to consider how detailed your analysis will be and data integration capabilities such as Word, Excel, Access, SQL, PowerPoint, SAS, SPSS and others.  Will these data integration capabilities make your research experience a better one?

Some software solutions also offer standardized questions and complete questionnaires specific to the educational survey type.

When reviewing survey software for your research, take all product and service capabilities that each survey software solution offers, into consideration.

Many survey software providers offer software that can be used across multiple modes of survey research.  Although low-cost, and sometimes free, survey software providers may sound appealing; they often don’t have the ability to administer surveys across multiple modes. More advanced survey software providers offer software packages that allow surveys to be administered across multiple modes, and data is collected in one easy to use survey file. More sophisticated survey software programs also have the ability to survey respondents across multiple languages and allow the researcher to perform data analysis all in one software program.

Available modes of survey distribution:

• Online Surveys
• Paper Surveys
• Email Surveys
• Kiosk Surveys
• Mobile Surveys
• Telephone Interview

There are many types of satisfaction surveys: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, product satisfaction, client satisfaction, patient satisfaction, or student satisfaction surveys to name a few. These questionnaires can be administered in a number of modes: online, paper, kiosk,mobile, phone, or a one-on-one interview.The most commonly used satisfaction surveys are Customer Satisfaction Surveys, which measure how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectations, and Employee Satisfaction Surveys, which measure employees’ attitudes, opinions, motivations, and satisfaction, which help the employer to identify areas of employee satisfaction or employee dissatisfaction, as the case may be.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

A Customer Satisfaction Survey can help your organization:

• Collect market research regarding opinions, trends, and competitors
• Measure interest in new products and service offerings
• Generate a targeted list of potential new customers

Collect – Measure – Generate

When is the Best Time to Administer a Customer Satisfaction Survey?

The best time to administer a customer satisfaction survey is when the customer experience is still fresh in the minds of your customers. If the survey is not administered immediately, you run several risk factors:

• You may receive a less than accurate response.
• The customer may forget some of the details of the customer interaction.
• The respondent’s answers may be skewed by an experience from a later event.
• The respondent may fabricate his answers because of confusion with other visits.
• The respondent may confuse you with another company they visited.

Consider administering customer satisfaction surveys as an interview at the time of sale/service or as a self-guided survey at self-checkout vestibules.  If an immediate interview is not possible, collect the customers’ email addresses and email a customer satisfaction survey to their email inbox immediately upon sales/service transaction.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys

An Employee Satisfaction Survey can help your organization:

Measure – Benchmark – Improve

• Measure employee satisfaction levels
• Benchmark employee satisfaction results against previous data
• Improve overall employee satisfaction and retention

How to Design an Employee Satisfaction Survey

The design of the employee satisfaction survey is important as it can have as much influence on the employee response rate as it can on the method in which the survey was completed.

The elements of a good employee survey are:

• Each question must directly relate to, and be measured against, the main objectives of the survey.
• The questionnaire must be easy to complete, and it should not aim to “trick” employees into answering questions.
• Be considerate of time. An employee survey should take no longer than 15-20 minutes to complete.
• Only ask sensible questions that employees can easily answer.
• Group similar questions together.
• Develop questions that will yield relevant and meaningful information for the organization.
• The questionnaire must strike a balance between addressing the needs of employees and the needs of the organization.
• The questionnaire must include open response questions that will allow employees to provide ideas for improvement and suggestions in the form of text comments.

We’ve provided 12 questions to help you evaluate the needs of your organization, and we’ve included a few pointers to enable you to compare all the software offerings on the market.

• 1. How many surveys are you planning?
• 2. How many questions in your survey?
• 3. Have you used survey software before?
• 4. Do you already have the resources in-house?
• 5. Are you looking for all your surveys to be online?
• 6. How complex are your surveys?

•   7. How many replies are you expecting?
•   8. Are you likely to need paper questionnaires?
•   9. Might you need surveys on mobiles, SMS?
• 10. What are you planning to do with the replies?
• 11. Who else might need access to your results?
• 12. Do you have a survey budget?

What next?

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of your survey needs and you’re in a position to evaluate the options. The market is crowded and comparing products can be difficult – ideally you’ll want all the best features from all the software suppliers. Unfortunately, life’s not that simple, so you’ll have to make compromises.

Look for a reliable supplier with a good reputation for customer support. The best way of evaluating this is to talk to organizations that have been using the service for a few years. Good technical support is critical in an ever changing marketplace, so avoid organizations who won’t talk to you and demand that every contact is by email.

Take the opportunity of viewing the demo videos and then ask the sales representative to demonstrate the software to you. That way, you ask questions on areas that are not totally clear. If a free trial period is available, then certainly take advantage, but to avoid testing out several systems, draw up a short list of suppliers based on capabilities, levels of support, and price.