I had a survey construction class during my MBA. This is mainly obvious stuff, but indeed should be studied and practiced because people screw this up all the t

I had a survey construction class during my MBA. This is mainly obvious stuff, but indeed should be studied and practiced because people screw this up all the time. Assuming your goal is to find out what people think (vs, have the survey tell you what you want it to tell you) - you have to realize that most people plop down their at-the-moment emotional state as the survey response, and that state is most recently influenced by the survey itself. Eg, if I asked you "should Israel dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the 10/7/2023 murder of 1500 people" - most people would say "yes" because the words "dismantle the terrorist organization" resonate with most people. If I asked them "do you support a ceasefire in Gaza" - most people would also say yes, because the word ceasefire would resonate with them. Obviously these would be contradictory results. What this survey wouldn't tell you is how many people actually think about this topic and which way they lean. A better designed survey would be something like this: Question 1: How aware are you of the current conflict in Gaza (1-5) Question 2: In your own words, how would you describe the conflict? Question 3: If 1 is "Ceasefire at all costs" and 10 is "eliminate terrorists at all costs", where would you place your opinion? Having these 3 datapoints would enable you to filter by those who actually have an opinion (or, find out what percentage has an opinion), use question 2 to validate that and/or gain new insights and use 3 to identify how strongly people lean one way or another.