Survey Software HQ

LINK to their new website

Personally, out of all the types of surveys one could do, I find the longitudinal variety to be the most interesting and the most informative, simply because a trend/behavior is being tracked over a period of years.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait 10 years to conduct your second survey. Longitudinal studies that go back in time are called retrospective studies and would be used where a researcher investigates recorded bahevior over the years (population, medical records, etc) and uses todays number to make a statement.

One of the more famous around the area I grew up, is the Framingham Heart Study. I have a few friends that go out to Framingham every few years to get their blood taken and levels checked. They are in the third generation of program participants. Most of the now common knowledge concerning heart disease, such as the effects of diet, exercise, and common medications such as aspirin, are based on this longitudinal study.

If you like the idea of a repeating, long-term survey, there’s a neat documentary series you could watch called “Seven Up!” which follows the lives of 14 British children starting in 1964. Each new film in the series (Seven Up, Seven plus Seven, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, etc) profiles the lives of the participants at 7 year intervals. It’s not very exciting compared to some of the blockbusters or short web clips of today, but provides a much more lasting impact and effect.

Here’s some more longitudinal surveys/studys.

Dunedin Longitudinal Study
Minnesota Twin Family Study
World Values Survey (repeated cross-sectional)
Panel Study on Income Dynamics
German Socio-economic Panel Study
British Household Panel Survey
Seven Up!
Born in Bradford
Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
Panel Study of Belgian Households

This guy rips into the inability for “the survey software” to allow “don’t know” (or not applicable) as a choice, yet proceeds to go on to make a survey design error himself. LINK

This stresses why it’s important to send a test out to your colleagues before sending the survey outside, to your customers, where you can’t take it back quickly.