Dave Vannette
Author Bio
Dave Vannette is a contributor to the Qualtrics blog.
Articles written by Dave Vannette
Rating or Ranking: Choosing the best question type for your data
When it comes to surveys, how you ask each question may be just as important to your data quality as what you ask. It can be tricky to decide what type of question to use to get the most useful dat...
3min read
Three tips for effectively designing rating scales
Survey data are only as good as the questions asked and the way we ask them. To that end, let’s talk survey rating scales such as Likert scales. Some of the common questions researchers when setting...
5min read
How to label response scale points in your survey to avoid misdirecting respondents
Have you ever been following navigation instructions while driving and wished that an instruction or street sign would’ve been more clear or specific? Maybe you couldn’t tell in time which lane le...
3min read
6 Ways to Pretest Your Survey Before You Send It
Time is money, and often researchers want to send their surveys to respondents as quickly as possible, many times untested. But rushing to distribute a survey can often result in unforeseen problems w...
4min read
Survey Straightlining: What is it? How can it hurt you? And how to protect against it.
Straightlining. It’s the bane of survey writers. It happens when your respondents rush through your survey clicking on the same response every time and it’s a serious threat to data quality. &n...
3min read
Using Attention Checks in Your Surveys May Harm Data Quality
Thinking of checking up on respondent attention mid-survey to make sure that you’re getting good data? Think again. In this article, we highlight how new findings from our Qualtrics Methodology L...
9min read
Why Using Grid Questions Is Probably Hurting Your Data
Even for experienced researchers, intuition about survey design often runs counter to best practices outlined in survey methodology literature. One of the question types that we see used in web survey...
3min read
The dos and don'ts of ranking questions
Ranking questions are an important asset in the survey designers’ toolbox, but they can be tricky to use effectively. Researchers often want to ask respondents to rank huge lists to see what people ...
3min read
Biased data are bad data: How to think about question order
The order in which you ask questions can make a huge difference in your data. If you’re not careful, you can inadvertently anchor your respondents and bias your data. And no one wants that. A cla...
4min read
Why including “don’t know” responses is hurting your survey data
One of the more common mistakes survey writers make is including a “don’t know” or “no opinion” response. Doing so provides an easy way for respondents to avoid engaging with the subject of ...
3min read
Avoiding the ‘yes’ bias
It’s often harder to say ‘no’ than ‘yes.’ This has been the subject of numerous self-help book chapters and blog posts. However, many people are surprised to learn that this is also a seriou...
3min read