How to Create a Survey Report in 5 Steps
By busayo.longe
| Last updated:
Jul 27
|
12 min read
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Surveys are usually created as part of a research process, which is aimed at attaining a conclusion. Hence,r to conclude your surveys, you need to create a survey report at the end of your survey.
This describes a survey, its results, and any pattern or trends found in the survey, all to help you conclude your research.
Creating a survey report is usually the next step after you finish conducting your survey. For proper analysis, it usually follows a set-out pattern — including headings, subheadings, etc.
A survey report is a document whose task is to present the information gathered during the survey in an objective manner. It presents a summary of all the responses that were collected in a simple and visually appealing manner.
The report follows a standard organization, with different sections, headings, subheadings, etc. It is usually created at the end of a survey (i.e. after constructing and gathering responses).
Survey reports are an integral part of the research, and it is very important that you always represent accurate data in your report.
It is one thing to create a survey report, but another to create a good survey report. Therefore, we have prepared a guide to assist you in writing your next report.
Here are the 5 main steps you need to follow to create a good survey report.
Every survey report requires a survey Hence, the first thing you need to do is to create a survey or questionnaire that will be used to carry out your survey.
The responses received from the questionnaire will determine the final outlook of the survey report . However, there are a few important things you need to consider before creating a questionnaire for your survey report.
The first step to creating a good questionnaire for your survey report is defining the objectives of your research. After which you will create your questionnaire which aligns with your research objectives.
In simple terms, your research objective will guide you in choosing the kind of questionnaire that should be created. For example, if your objective is to sell your products online, then you should create an online order form.
After defining your objectives, the next step is to identify your target audience. Your target audience will determine the kind of questions that would be asked in the questionnaire.
When creating a questionnaire to evaluate job seekers, for instance, the questions that will be asked in the questionnaire will be different from when creating a questionnaire for those seeking a life partner.
Now that you know the research objective and target audience, the next step is to determine the method that will be used in carrying out this survey. Is it going to be quantitative or qualitative? Or both?
The interesting thing about choosing a method of carrying out your research is that this method is determined by the first two factors. For an online matchmaking questionnaire, a qualitative method will be used.
An online order form, on the other hand, will require both, but mostly quantitative methods.
Another important aspect of creating a questionnaire is determining the types of questions that will be most perfect for the survey. Is it dichotomous, close-ended questions, or rating and ranking questions?
The type of survey questions should be carefully chosen by the questionnaire in order to collect the right data and not affect the response rate on the survey. For example, when requesting the phone number of your respondents, the question shouldn’t be closed-ended.
After determining how to create a questionnaire for your survey, the next thing to do is create the questionnaire and start collecting data. There are points to note in data collection and some of them have been highlighted below:
to create a more detailed survey report, you need to identify your audience’s location when collecting data. Respondents may be reluctant to provide their location in the questionnaire,
Therefore, you need to create a questionnaire that automatically identifies the respondent’s location once they start filling the questionnaire. This can be done using the Formplus Geolocation feature.
One of the best practices of collecting clean data for your questionnaire is by avoiding survey bias. There are different kinds of biases that we can face during data collection, and they all fall under response and non-response biases.
There are a lot of things you need to consider when creating your questionnaire to avoid these biases. These fall under the 4 factors we have highlighted above for you to consider when creating a questionnaire.
Another thing to consider when choosing a data collection method is the type of questionnaire to use. Is it better to use an online or paper form?
There are a lot of factors that should be considered when making this decision. Some of these include; your target audience, cost of implementation, efficiency, and data security.
The traditional way of data collection is through the paper questionnaire. However, if you consider the factors that were highlighted above, you will realize that it is better to use an online questionnaire.
An online questionnaire is easier to implement, more efficient, cost-effective, helps to reach a larger audience, and even offers more data security. However, if most of your target audience are in remote areas without an internet connection, or are not familiar with how to use a technological device, it is better to use paper forms or both.
Before writing a report from the data collected during your survey, you need to simplify it for better understanding. This will make it easy to write a survey report for the data collected and for other people to understand the data.
After data collection, you need to export it for data analysis. This can be done using any of the available data analysis software.
Analyzing data on Excel or Google Sheets just became easier with Formplus. With the Formplus – Google Sheets integration, the responses collected from your questionnaire will be automatically added to your Google Sheets worksheet in real-time.
You can also export the data as CSV and work on it using Microsoft Excel, Power BI, or any other data analysis software.
After exporting the data, you analyze it. Data analysis involves breaking data down into simpler terms, identifying similarities, grouping and interpreting them.
There are different methods of data analysis that can be used in analyzing the data collected from your questionnaire before interpretation . However, each of these methods follows similar processes that have been highlighted below.
Due to some factors during the data collection process, you may have collected inaccurate or corrupt information – making the data “dirty”. This may include duplicate records, white spaces, or outright errors.
Things like this make the collected data irrelevant to your aim of Analysis and should be cleaned. It is the next step after data collection, so that you may arrive at a conclusion that is closer to your expected outcome.
Once the data is collected, cleaned, and processed, it is ready for analysis. At this point, you may realize that you have the exact data you need or still need to collect more data. To make analysis easier, you might use software that will ease understating, interpretation, and conclusion.
After a successful analysis, the next step is interpretation. There are different ways of interpreting the result of data analysis. It can be done using simple words (usually a summary of the result), tables, or charts.
This is the most common process involved in data analysis and interpretation. It is the process of displaying data graphically so that it can be easier for everyone to understand and process it. It is often used to analyze relationships and discover trends by comparing t variables in a dataset.
After successfully analysing and interpreting your data, it is ready to feature in your survey report. At this stage, all you need to do is plug and play because everything you need has been prepared in the previous steps.
To further make your survey report writing process easier, it is advised that you follow a pre-designed template that is tailored to the type of survey under consideration.
Before embarking on the report writing journey, you need to first identify the type of survey report you want to write. The type of survey report is determined by the nature of the survey that was carried out.
Some of the different kinds of surveys include employee satisfaction surveys, customer feedback surveys, market research surveys, etc.
This method is used to gauge whether employees are satisfied with the work environment. Organizations usually do this to ensure that employees are motivated and to build a stronger team spirit.
Employees are asked to give feedback and particularly voice their frustrations with the company.
This is undoubtedly one of the most common types of surveys. Businesses are always seen requesting feedback from customers after selling a product or rendering a service.
As an individual, you must have experienced this at a point in time. Whether after purchasing an item from a grocery store, placing an order online ordering at a restaurant, etc.
It is used to discover customer needs, competitive advantage, how and where products are purchased, etc. This type of survey can be applied when no data is available yet: For example, to measure how your target audience feels about a product you intend to lunch.
In some instances, it’s about building on past data in your market research database. When you are building on past research, you conduct a survey to measure, for example, what people think about the product, say, a year after its launch.
For each of the different types of surveys highlighted above, the structure of the survey report will be slightly different from the other.
Although the structure of the different types of survey reports may vary slightly, there are some must-have features common to all survey types. The features of a survey report include; a title page, table of contents, executive summary, background and objectives, methodology, results, conclusion and recommendations, and appendices.
The content of the above-listed sections may, however, vary across the different types of survey reports. Asides from following a set structure, there are also guidelines for writing a good survey report.
This includes writing the executive summary and table of contents last, writing in concise, simple sentences, and polishing the report before finalizing it.
This is the point where you implement all the research and analysis that was done in previous steps. Note that it is not good practice to write survey reports from memory.
Rather, it should be carefully written using the facts and figures derived from analysis. This is what is used to drive a conclusion on your research, and also make recommendations.
You will notice that this follows consecutively in the survey report. That is results, the conclusion derived from results, and the recommendation after observing the conclusion.
Follow the following simple steps to create a ranking questionnaire using Formplus:
You can create a Formplus survey in one of the following ways:
Get a head start by using a template designed by a team of market research experts. To do this, go to Templates and choose from any of the available templates.
To create a new survey from scratch on Formplus, go to your Dashboard, then click on the Create new form button.
Alternatively, go to the top menu, then click on the Create Form button.
The next step is to add questions so you can collect data from your survey. You can do this by going to the left sidebar in the form builder, then choose from any of the available 30+ form fields.
You can simply click or drag and drop the form field into the blank space to preview your progress as you create the survey. Each form field included in your form can be further edited by clicking on the Edit icon.
Once you have edited the form fields to your taste, you should click on the Save button in the top right corner of the form builder.
After adding the required form field to your survey, the next step is to make it attractive to respondents. Formplus has some built-in customization features that can be used to create a beautiful survey
This option allows you to add colours, fonts, images, backgrounds, etc. There is also a custom built-in CSS feature that gives you more design flexibility.
You even get to preview the survey in real-time as you make further customization.
Formplus offers various sharing options to choose from. This includes sharing via email, customized links, social media, etc.
You can send personalized email invites to respondents with prefilled respondent details to avoid entry of incorrect data. With prefilled surveys, personal details like respondent’s name, email address, and phone number will be pre-populated.
Survey reports show the results of a research survey and make recommendations based on a careful analysis of these results. They summarize the result of your research in a manner that can be easily understood and interpreted by a layman or third party, who was not involved in the research process.
A good survey report follows a well thought out systematic arrangement that smoothly drives you from a wide summary down to your specific recommendations. How it is being written is what determines how it is seen or understood by other people.
The key to writing a good survey is by mastering the art of using simple words to summarize the results of your research. It should also be created using beautiful designs to encourage readers.
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