So You Want to Get Your Survey Accepted: Optimizing Survey Question Design While Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Surveys are a popular methodology in medical education assessment and are used to understand the nature of educational problems, explore the perspectives of learners and educators, and assess performance, knowledge, attitudes and well-being. As such, the Alliance fields national annual surveys and offer members the opportunity to propose survey sections. Every year more submissions are received than can be accepted. Additionally, the usefulness of data collected can be limited by the construct and design of survey questions, meaning some proposed survey topics do not always successfully translate into medical education scholarship. CDIM Survey and Scholarship Committee members will review basic principles of survey use in medical education research and how educators can design surveys that can contribute to scholarship. Opportunities for members to submit survey questions for the CDIM annual survey and an overview of the selection process and criteria for high-quality thematic survey submissions will be discussed. Specifically, the workshop will cover how to define constructs of interest, design sound survey questions and avoid common pitfalls. The presenters will touch on the steps required for survey development, including expert review of questions and beta-testing. Participants have the opportunity to learn how the CDIM Survey and Scholarship Committee works with authors to refine their survey questions, analyze results, and assist with manuscript preparation and publication. Additionally, examples of survey submissions that resulted in peer-reviewed publications will be shared. Participants will practice writing survey questions relevant to their interests and develop plans for submission to the CDIM annual survey.