Post-Survey Interview Strategy

Researchers are always looking for ways to cut down on the amount of questions and time that respondents need to complete a survey. Often this involves cutting out some of the less valuable questions, but often there are other ways to cut down on the length that don't necessarily involve cutting back on questions at all.

It's for that reason, and others, that many experts recommend a post-survey interview. Post-survey interviews are, in a way, a method of getting answers to open-ended questions without asking it in the survey. Open-ended questions take a great deal of effort from the reader, and many skip over answering them in full because they would rather not spend time sharing their answers.

While some people are nice enough to fill out a complete answer, you'll find that most respondents will do whatever they can to spend as little time answering the question as possible. This brings up two issues for the researcher: If the individual is not going to take time to provide a real answer, is there any reason to ask the question? Would not it be better to skip the open-ended parts altogether and save the respondent some time? Are open-ended questions providing you with enough of an answer anyway? What if you need elaboration, or further exploration because the answer is interesting? Often experts find that the solution to these concerns is a post-survey interview.

These interviews are related to the types of interviews a company would receive to get feedback on what to put in a survey, except in this case it is about thoughts that came up when the survey was completed. Post-survey interviews take some of the time out of answering individual open-ended survey questions because they can be asked in person when someone is more likely to share. They also ensure that those that have thoughts are willing to provide more complete answers, which can be very valuable to the company asking questions.

It's not a perfect solution because the cost of running these interviews can be somewhat substantial, especially if you want a larger sample. In addition, selecting the number of people that you want to come for a post-survey interview can be troublesome, and not everyone is going to be willing to take even more time out of their day.

But if you're looking for a quick way to save time on a survey and you want better answers from your open-ended questions, this method could be highly advantageous.