Survey Questionnaire Design Template
The construct-to-item map that cuts questions nobody will analyse, the response formats you cannot fix after fielding, and the base size of every routed block.
Free download · No account needed
Construct to Item Map
[Study name], [wave or round]
Expected completes [frame size times the response rate you expect]
Draft item count [before this sheet]
Kept item count [after this sheet]
Read the sheet right to left tables first, then analyses, then items
Construct Items Planned analysis Table Verdict
[primary outcome] [n] [the specific analysis] [Tbl n] keep
[primary exposure] [n] [the specific analysis] [Tbl n] keep
[covariate] [n] [the specific analysis] [Tbl n] keep
[construct] [n] none none cut
[construct] [n] none none cut
----
KEPT SUBTOTAL [n]
CUT SUBTOTAL [n]
DRAFT TOTAL [n] kept plus cut must closeThe last two columns are the whole sheet. "Descriptive statistics" is not an analysis and "the results section" is not a table. An item that cannot fill both does not enter the instrument.
Cut list, grouped by reason
Duplicates a construct already measured / no research question behind the construct / construct named with no planned analysis / demographic with neither an analysis nor a benchmark to weight against.
The pack is seven files, one standing rule and eight prompts. Three sheets carry the arithmetic: the construct-to-item map, the response option register and the routing logic. Four documents carry the instrument itself, the pilot protocol, the ethics note, and a page on which four decisions stop being reversible the moment you field. The standing rule is that an item earns its place by naming the table it appears in.
Every sheet ships filled in for one illustrative workforce survey. A 68-item draft comes out at 41. Eleven items duplicated a construct already measured, eight named a construct with no planned analysis, five were demographics with nothing to weight against, and three had no research question behind them. Median completion time falls from 21 minutes to 13. Five of ten response formats could not support their planned analysis, and four of those five are unfixable once the instrument is in the field.
Federal survey standards require the written plan to set out the tabulations and analytic results that will inform decisions before the instrument exists. A template with a Question column and a Response Type column reverses that order. Open the pack in River and the map gets built from your tables. Or download the documents and sheets and fill them in yourself, then hand the fielded data to the cleaning record and the methods section. Whether the instrument measures the construct it claims to is a separate pilot-stage check; more research packs sit alongside both.
What's in the pack
Construct to Item Map sheet
One row per construct with the research question behind it, the item count, the planned analysis, and the table or figure the items appear in. Kept and cut subtotals that have to close.
Response Option Register sheet
Every item's format written out in full, the measurement level it produces, the analysis it has to support, a plain yes or no, and whether the mistake survives fielding.
Routing Logic sheet
Each routed block with its condition, the expected rate and where the rate came from, the expected base, the smallest cell of its planned table, and a verdict of field, restructure or cut.
Instrument
The questionnaire block by block with each item's rationale beside it rather than in a separate file, because a rationale kept elsewhere is one nobody reads during a revision.
Pilot Protocol
What is being tested, on whom, and what result changes the instrument, all written before the pilot runs. Scoped to what is new, because the standard accepts components successfully fielded on a previous occasion.
Ethics Note
What respondents are told, by construct rather than by item, what justifies each item collected, and what was cut because nothing justified collecting it.
How This Instrument Was Built
The four decisions that stop being reversible the moment you field, which artifact catches each one, and the order the artifacts have to run in.
An item earns its place by naming its output
The standing space rule every prompt reads first, including the three questions that cut items and the list of things to reject on sight.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Open the pack in River and the agent builds the map from your research questions, or download the blank Word documents and CSV sheets instantly.
- 2
Send the questions and the frame
Your research questions, the tables your report has to contain, any prior wave you need to stay comparable to, and how many people you expect to complete.
- 3
Build the map before anything else
Every construct gets its research question, its item count, its planned analysis and its table. Anything that cannot fill the last two columns collects in the cut list.
- 4
Check the formats and the routing
Then the response formats, checked against the analysis each one has to support, and the expected base of every routed block. Both are knowable before fielding.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Download the whole pack as Word documents and CSV sheets with no signup and no credit card. Edit with AI is a separate, optional path where the agent builds the map from your research questions and audits a draft instrument you already have. The template library holds the rest.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents for the four documents and the rule, and CSV for the three sheets, in one zip. They open natively in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with nothing to convert. Inside River the same content opens as live Docs and Sheets.
I already have a draft questionnaire. Can it work from that?
That is the best input it can get. It places every existing item against a construct, a planned analysis and a named table, then hands you the leftovers grouped by reason with the completion time before and after. Most drafts lose between a quarter and a half of their items.
Why is it so insistent about asking age as a number?
Because bands cannot be unbanded and there is no re-contact. A banded age has no mean, cannot enter a model as a continuous term, and cannot be weighted against a benchmark published in single years. Ask the number, band it at analysis time, and the choice stays open.
Does it shorten published scales to save time?
No, and it will tell you when altering one is the problem. Dropping items from a published scale to save time produces a new instrument with no published reliability and no comparability. The pack records whether each block is verbatim, a validated short form, or altered with the alterations named.
How does it know a routed block will be too small?
It computes them. Expected completes times the rate at each gate, using your prior wave's observed incidence where you have one, then the smallest cell of the subgroup table that block was written for. In the worked example three of nine blocks cannot support their table.
Does the pack handle the data once responses come in?
No. It stops at the moment the instrument is fielded, which is where the irreversible decisions are. Once responses arrive, the export preparation tool handles the platform quirks and the exclusions, and the researcher workspace holds the whole project.
Decide it now, or never decide it
Send your research questions, the tables your report has to contain, and how many people you expect to complete. The map and the base sizes come back with the arithmetic done.
Edit with AI