A survey is a process for getting answers to questions, but surveys turn out to be harder than they ought to be because there are potential pitfalls at every stage, from thinking about the goals of the survey through to analysing the answers.
In this full-day workshop, we used my Survey Octopus to think about all the issues that you need to consider to get reliable data from surveys – and how all those issues are connected, like the tentacles. At the end, I reveal that the Survey Octopus is a friendlier version of the key concept in survey methodology, Total Survey Error.
The workshop was part of the LibDesign 2016 Conference, at which I also delivered a keynote address on Designing better public services.
Since I ran this training course my book, Surveys That Work, has been published. It goes into greater detail about many of the ideas that feature in the course. See: Surveys That Work: the book and extras