Software Features and Limitations
The following information is provided to assist you in the design of your survey.
Keep in mind, SurveyMonkey for online research will NOT support the following:
- Unique survey URLs for individual survey participants
- Question types that require the user to enter information within a certain amount of time
Follow Up Questions
Many surveys often ask questions which require follow up questions, or what CHERRIES refers to as “adaptive questioning” to keep questions simple or to ensure respondents are only asked applicable questions. With the SurveyMonkey software, adaptive questioning is created through skip logic.
Skip logic is used to advance respondents to specific points in your survey or skip over any inapplicable questions based on their answer to a previous close-ended questions. You can apply skip logic to the following closed-ended question types in your survey:
- Multiple Choice*
- Dropdown
- Single-Row Rating Scale (Type of Matrix/Rating Scale)
*Applying skip logic to multiple choice questions works best when setup for single responses. While skip logic can be applied to multiple choice questions with multiple answers, if a respondent selects answer choices with different logic paths, the survey can only advance them to the destination set for whichever choice was listed first.
When submitting the questions for a new survey request, be sure to identify any necessary skip logic paths.
Anonymous Response Tracking
For confidentiality of data, the ORC configures SurveyMonkey surveys for anonymous responses such that the IP addresses of respondents do not appear in the collected results. If you are conducting a pre- and post- survey or any other type of survey that requires anonymous response tracking across multiple surveys, consider the following technique of using unique identifiers for anonymously identifying participants:
Begin your survey with a question asking respondents to create or enter (for follow up surveys) a unique identifier and provide instructions for generating the ID to ensure it will not be forgotten and remains consistent.
For example: To help us anonymously compare your pre- and post- survey responses, please provide a/your unique identifier using the last letter of your first, middle, and last name followed by the numerical portion of your street address. For example, John Doe Smith living at 640 Plum Street would enter, “neh640”
Mobile Response Options
Survey Monkey surveys are optimized for devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle and Nook eReaders. Respondents can also respond to surveys from most mobile web browsers, since our surveys are optimized for most mainstream browsers (SurveyMonkey Supported Browsers). We are working to optimize our surveys for other media or mobile devices, like Apple & Android. If you plan to receive a large number of responses from mobile users, we suggest using simple question types in your design. Avoid including hard-to-scale matrix question types, as these are less likely to display properly on a small mobile screen. As you design your survey, keep in mind that many of your respondents may take the survey on their phone or tablet. It's important to consider how the survey will appear on a mobile screen, and how that can affect completion rates.
When designing surveys for mobile respondents:
- Use simple multiple choice question types
- Be as focused and succinct as possible – avoid long descriptions
- Limit the number of answer choices so that all response options are visible on the screen at the same time
- Limit the use of open-ended questions as these have a negative impact on mobile survey completion rates
- Distribute questions over multiple, short pages rather than creating fewer long pages
- Always preview and test your survey on the device you expect respondents to use
