How to use screening questions in surveys

From political campaigns to market research, surveys have long been a go-to tool for understanding what people really think. But for these surveys to provide useful insights, you first need to determine who to survey. Once you’ve pinned that down, screening questions will help you group or separate respondents by whatever characteristics you need for your particular purposes.

As a researcher, you need to cast a wide net to find enough individuals who meet the correct profile — and the right questions can make all the difference. Let’s look at how to craft ones that get results.

An overview of screening questions

Survey screening questions, or “screeners,” appear first on a questionnaire to disqualify (as politely as possible) anyone who doesn’t meet the criteria. You can design a survey so that the questions end naturally once a respondent provides a disqualifying answer, which avoids you wasting their time and makes it easier when it comes to analyzing responses.

Say you work for an auto manufacturer, and you want to survey people who recently purchased a competing model. To find them, you’d broadly survey people who had bought vehicles in the last year or so. Screening questions would then identify those who purchased from a certain competitor, who would then go on to answer in-depth questions about their decision-making process. For the people that hadn’t purchased from that competitor, their survey would end after the screening questions.

The process of finding people with the right combination of attributes for your survey will inevitably begin with a larger group who are similar. Screening questions then allow you to find just those people you’re looking for.

Best practices for drafting screening questions

Screening questions require as much thought as the survey itself. Here are some best practices to consider when you’re developing your own.

Ask for no more than you need

Let’s face it — no one wants to spend their entire lunch break filling out a survey. So, make it as brief as you can make it without undermining the usefulness and validity of the results. This means keeping open-ended, repetitive, and unnecessary questions to a minimum. Always examine the survey from a participant’s point of view, then remove the tedious and redundant questions that will test their patience and see your dropout rate skyrocket. Aim for it to take no more than 10 minutes to complete.

Put your screeners and big questions first

Screening questions are meant to find the people you’re looking to survey among a much larger pool of respondents. Respect each person’s time by disqualifying them from the survey as early as you can. If you’re trying to survey people who go out to eat once or more a week, ask at the beginning of your survey how often they dine out. If you’re trying to hire professional truck drivers, ask up front if the applicant has a commercial driver license. Simple.

Don’t give away the survey topic

Survey screening questions have two purposes. The first is to screen out people who don’t have the right qualifications to answer the questions that follow. The second, and equally important, purpose is to get unbiased answers from those who are qualified. Qualified respondents are more likely to provide spontaneous answers if they haven’t figured out the topic from the phrasing of the earlier questions.

Include page breaks

When an answer has disqualified the respondent from further questions, make it clear with a page break. Think of it as marking the exit.

Don’t ask “leading” questions

A survey is only valuable if the answers are genuine. For best results, avoid questions that suggest there’s a preferred answer. This is particularly true when phrasing screening questions — you don’t want to accidentally exclude people who would’ve been great survey participants. For example, a question like “Are you a high-performing professional who’s actively seeking development opportunities?” might exclude someone who’s unsure if they’re “high-performing” or someone who’s interested in career development but not actively looking for opportunities.

Helpful survey tools from Jotform

Well-phrased screening questions are crucial to useful surveys. But if you’re still unsure where to start, Jotform has more than 700 survey templates with sample questions that you can easily edit. You can then sift and analyze the answers using our reporting tools or over 300 table templates.

Can’t find the right template for you? Jotform also makes it easy to build an online survey from scratch. Even a basic Likert scale answering system can give valuable information about the attitude of your employees, customers, and clients — or in any situation when you need candid answers but direct questioning is impractical or problematic.

With Jotform templates, you can easily begin conducting surveys without having to hire outside help. Get started today.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko