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3/21/14

How to creatively solve problems

I read this article in the Atlantic a few months ago which described how a surprising number of inventions and innovations in various fields are coming from people who are not experts in the field of interest. It reminded me of how some scientists have created computer games based on real world problems, and people […]

By Kate DarwentRead More

3/20/14

How to make sense of open-ended responses

As we’ve pointed out before, including an open-ended question or two on a survey can be incredibly enlightening. After all, these kinds of questions really bring the attitudes and beliefs of respondents to life and leave the researcher with a rich pool of genuine opinions on a topic. However, open-ended data can sometimes present an […]

By Sarah WilliamsRead More

3/18/14

Four questions to ask before starting your evaluation

Evaluation is a helpful tool to support many different decisions within an organization.  Evaluation can take on many forms (e.g., summative, formative, developmental, outcomes, process, implementation, etc.), and the first step is to identify what kind of evaluation will be most useful to you right now.  Regardless of whether you need to measure your outcomes […]

By Beth MulliganRead More

3/17/14

4 ways to report customer satisfaction

In my previous post we discussed two common types of satisfaction surveys.  In this post we’ll touch on the many ways to report results. Suppose we have the following question: Q: Taking into account all of your experiences with X, please rate your overall satisfaction with X: Extremely satisfied Moderately satisfied Slightly satisfied Neither satisfied […]

By David KennedyRead More

3/13/14

How to ask demographic questions

Asking demographic questions (e.g., age, gender, marital status) should be the easiest of survey questions to ask, right?  What if I told you asking someone how old they are will yield different results than asking in what year they were born, or that asking a sensitive question (e.g., How much money did you make last […]

By Matt BruceRead More

3/12/14

Societal values in music

We stumbled across the interesting data visualization today, which shows how commonly different words or phrases have appeared in Billboard’s Top 100 songs over the past 50 years or so.  As we scroll through the tables, the most obvious pattern is the increase in profanity (described as “foul words”) since 1990.  Prior to that era, […]

By Kevin RainesRead More