Using the Question Bank Library

SurveyMonkey's Question Bank contains hundreds of questions created and certified by our very own survey methodologists. Choose between several categories of survey types to narrow down which certified questions you want to include in your design. Using Question Bank minimizes bias and gives you the most accurate responses to your survey questions.

Question Bank is available in all account types, free or paid.

 

Question Bank example:

Q. How resourceful were the customer service representatives at our company while helping you?

Why is this a certified question?

There are several components that go into designing a survey to make it methodologically sound. One important element is the construct of interest. In this question, the construct is resourcefulness of the customer service representative. Notice how the answer choices also include the construct of interest based on a measurement scale of extremely to not at all.

To learn more about this, view our blog at How Question Bank Was Built.

 

How to use Question Bank:

1. Click Create Survey from the upper right corner of your account if you haven't already started your survey.
   • Enter your Title and Category, and click Continue.
2. Click Question Bank from the left-hand gray column; and choose a Category from the subsequent drop-down menu — you'll see Community, Customer Feedback, Demographics, Education, Events, Healthcare, Human Resources, Industry Specific, Just for Fun, Market Research, Non-Profit and Political.
3. You'll see a drop-down menu for Showing if you'd like to drill down into specific templates.  To add questions:
   • Tick the check boxes on the left-hand side, and to add them all at once click Add to Survey from the top right;
   • Or to add questions one at a time, click Add corresponding to each row.
4. You can toggle between categories, or come back to question bank as needed.  Where you see variables that specify the noun or organization you're asking respondents about, click the drop-down menu to enter your own value.
5. When you're finished, click either Edit Survey from the top left, or Back to Survey from the top center of the page.

 

How to use Question Bank auto-complete:

You have the ability to use Question Bank's autocomplete feature directly inside the question editor rather than going into the Question Bank first:

• Simply make sure the Show Certified Questions box is checked, and as you type in the question heading, we will suggest certified questions to you based on your keywords.
• If you see one that's relevant, click on it in the suggested questions drop-down menu. The editor will then automatically pull it from the Question Bank. The question type will be automatically selected, and the answer choices will be populated for you.
• Click Save & Add Next Question to keep adding more!

 

Limitations:

The use of some SurveyMonkey features results in the loss of certification. You may see the Question Bank-certified badge disappear when you edit a question's text, but these are only internally viewable and for your reference.

Features you CAN add:

• Question/Page Randomization
• Change Question Size & Placement
• Question and Page Skip Logic
• Required to Answer Feature

Features you CANNOT add:

• Question and Answer Piping (Note: You can pipe from a Question Bank question into a regular question. However, you cannot pipe into a Question Bank question.)
• Random Assignment
• Sort, Randomize, Flip Choices
• Add "Other" Comment Box

To add multiple questions:

• Select the questions in the bank you want to add. Click the [Add to Survey] button, and all selected questions will be added. 

 

How Question Bank uses your survey data:

Question Bank contains standardized questions that help you create a methodologically-sound survey. In the future, we may anonymize and/or aggregate response data from Question Bank questions and use and share that data for the purposes of improving Question Bank and developing features that let you compare your survey responses to those of other survey creators using the same questions—all  anonymously.

Please note that we'll do this in a way which does not disclose any personal information to anyone. We'll always aggregate/anonymize response data so that neither you nor your survey respondents will be identifiable in the statistics we'll display to other Question Bank users. Also, note that we'll only provide this kind of useful aggregation for Question Bank questions in your survey–not any of your other questions.