Many people are intimidated by the task of writing a 360-degree feedback survey. We’ve put together this list of tips to help you tackle the task. Even if you don’t write your own survey, these ideas will help you review the surveys of potential survey content providers. The goal of each of these ideas is to create a survey that helps instill confidence in your raters and participants.
Applicable
Make sure the questions are applicable to each participant. The questions should address situations and behaviors they deal with on a regular basis and that are of value to your organization. If you choose to use an outside vendor for survey content, this is the largest area of potential frustration.
One point per question
A compound question is a question that requires more than one response. For example: “This person is prompt and reliable.” If the person you are rating gets to work on time, but does little once there, how should you answer this question? Questions such as this should be split into two questions.
Keep Questions Short Questions should be short. Longer questions have a greater chance of causing confusion and frustration. Brief and simple questions are more effective.
Use Common Language Avoid the use of complex language. Use terminology well within the reading level of your participants. Each area of your organization has its own lingo and area of expertise. The terminology you use in your survey should be easily understoon by all individuals in your organization.
Define Unclear Terms If a word or phrase has the potential of being misunderstood, include an explanation or example to ensure comprehension. Never assume that your participants understand an abbreviation or acronym (word created from the first letter of several words such as NASA), or catch phrase. Use more common language or write out abbreviations.
Use Positive Language
Positively worded questions are more pleasant and confidence-inspiring to answer than those with negative language. For example instead of writing “This person is critical of others,“ you can use: “This person praises others for their efforts.” You measure the same principle, but in a more positive way.
Avoid Biased, Leading Language
“You believe in gun control, don’t you?” is an example of a leading question. The writing of the question makes the position of the asker quite clear. A better version of the same question would be “What is your position on gun control?”
Allow for a Not Applicable or Don’t Know Response: Sometimes, a rater will not have seen the person being rated under every situation being measured. Allowing a ‘not applicable’ or ‘don’t know’ response prevents the rater from feeling trapped or forced into a response that doesn’t reflect his/her true opinion.
Emphasize Clarity
Each question should be worded carefully to ensure that its intended meaning is expressed. As you test your survey, if participants act confused or respond differently than you anticipated to certain questions, you may need to clarify those questions.
Group Similar Questions
You can improve the flow of your survey by grouping similar items together in a logical flow. For example, combine your questions on communication skills into one area. When using the Internet, you can use one page for each competency. Participants are not overwhelmed with a large number of questions at once, can save their responses at the end of each section, and mentally focus on one area at a time.
Types of Questions
Open-Ended questions: These questions allow participants to provide their own input on certain issues. A common open-ended question used in 360-degree feedback is “How could this person improve.” Participants often include comments on issues not addressed in the survey.
Using a few open-ended questions on your survey can help improve the quality of your results. The answers to these questions can’t be averaged or compared to the norm, but they can provide valuable nuggets of information. You can ask an open-ended question at the end of each section to encourage participants to share their opinions on each topic. Some organizations include a few of open-ended questions at the end of the survey.
Rating Questions: These questions constitute the bulk of the 360 survey. Participants rate themselves and those around them using a scale. Since each point on the scale is assigned a number, data can be compiled and analyzed using normal statistic analysis.
As you write your 360 questions, remember your audience. Your goal is to create a survey that instills confidence in your process and helps participants feel their opinion is valued. Anything you can do to help raters in this process will increase your response rate and the accuracy of your results.
