Survey concepts

We use the following concepts:

• Survey model

  A survey model contains the questions you want to ask respondents (surveyed). You can use all kinds of survey models, for example for customer satisfaction surveys, assessments of employees, taking inventory of desires, etc.

  Survey models also contain the settings that determine the way the survey is presented. For example, you can specify that every survey must be unique (meaning that every respondent gets different questions) and that questions should be shown to the respondent in a random order.

• Survey

  Once you are ready to actually conduct a survey, you generate a survey based on the preferred survey model. In the survey, you specify the employees and/or persons that have to complete the survey.

  You can derive multiple surveys from one survey model, for example because you want to conduct the same survey every year or because you want to have different target groups take the same survey. It is not possible to conduct an anonymous survey. In Profit, the identity of the respondent is always known.

• Selection groups

  If a user has to answer a question by choosing one of a limited number of answers (multiple choice), you can place the answers in a selection group and link the group to the question. Using selection groups will increase the unambiguity of the answers and consequently improve the options for analysing the survey results. A selection group can be linked to multiple questions.

  Example:

  In a satisfaction survey you use the questions 'What do you think of the service provided by the Helpdesk?', 'What do you think of the service provided by the Repair service?' and 'What do you think of the service provided by the Delivery service?'. The following answers to these questions are possible:

• Good
• Adequate
• Bad
• Not applicable (have not used this service)
• Do not know/no opinion

You place these answers in one selection group and link the group to the above questions.

In some cases you may want to use a set of answers for one specific question only. In that situation you do not link a selection group to the question, but specify the possible answers in the question's properties.

• Generate a survey

  You generate a survey based on a survey model. Profit creates a list of questions using the questions and question categories in the order in which they are specified in the survey model (unless you have specified that the questions should be asked in a random order). Where necessary, Profit will add the answers from a linked selection group.

  

  In the survey (not in the survey model), you specify the employees and/or persons that have to complete the survey.

• Include a random selection of questions

  If you have a survey model that includes question categories, you can specify that you want to include only some of the questions of each category in the survey.

  Example:

  A survey model for market research contains the following question categories:

• General questions (age, gender, income)
• Questions about Internet use (20 questions)
• Questions about digital television (10 questions)

  Because you ask the same group of respondents to take the same survey on a regular basis, you choose to include only some of the questions in the survey each time. However, the general questions must always be asked. That is why you use the following format:

• General questions (all)
• Questions about Internet use (8 questions out of 20)
• Questions about digital television (3 questions out of 10)

Every time the respondent takes the survey, a different (random) selection of the questions from the above categories is displayed.

If you conduct a survey multiple times, you can specify that respondents should not get the same questions every time. You specify this in the survey model. For each category, you can specify if the respondents should get different questions each time. You cannot specify this setting for individual questions.

• Unique survey for each respondent

  You can use a unique survey for each respondent. In that situation, Profit presents a different set of questions to each respondent. You configure this in the survey model.

  If you use this method, you cannot directly add the respondents to the survey. You link the persons or employees to be surveyed using a selection. In the properties of the survey, derived surveys are created: per surveyed, a separate survey is created. All derived surveys are managed from the properties of the survey.