Hello, just thinking of using BOS or Survey Monkey for my PhD survey to students and staff. I am also going to make a paper version available. The consent and participant information will also be contained in the survey (I think?).
Any advice for choosing survey software that:
-is free/cheap
-aids analysis
-easy for participants to use
-can be printed off as a paper version??
etc? Many thanks, Heidi
There's really not one right answer. Maybe check with your university or department first whether they already have a license to one of the survey tools. If that is not successful, almost all survey tools have a free tier, including SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo. It all comes down to how many surveys/responses/question types you need. I found SurveyGizmo more user-friendly and flexible for more complex surveys, compared to SurveyMonkey, but that's only for the paid tiers.
Google Forms is free and might already do the trick for you. Typeform is also fairly good and has a free tier. Just test out 2 or 3 of the products with free tiers and see which one is the most intuitive for you that checks all the boxes.
"Easy for participants to use" mostly boils down to your skills of creating a survey. You can confuse participants with each of these survey tools if you structure your survey or phrase your questions poorly.
My department pays for a medium-sized license for SurveyMonkey which I've used for over a decade. My university has bought a site license for BOS, which is not significantly different to SM, although I prefer the former. One reason we are encouraged to use BOS is because SM holds data in overseas servers and we need to include a GDPR statement in all SM surveys so BOS is (slightly) more ethically acceptable.
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