{"id":2727,"date":"2016-02-17T17:36:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T22:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/?p=2727"},"modified":"2022-12-02T07:09:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T12:09:18","slug":"when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Make a Survey Anonymous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/When-to-Make-a-Survey-Anonymous.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2731 size-large\" title=\"Anonymous Survey\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/When-to-Make-a-Survey-Anonymous-1024x638.jpg\" alt=\"Anonymous Survey\" width=\"631\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/When-to-Make-a-Survey-Anonymous-1024x638.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/When-to-Make-a-Survey-Anonymous-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 631px) 100vw, 631px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"div-spacer\"><\/div>\n<p>You sincerely want to know what people think, or you wouldn\u2019t take the time to create a survey. But under some circumstances, respondents may be hesitant to share their true opinions. Unless you can confidently assure them that the responses truly are anonymous, you won\u2019t get the response rates you want, and you certainly won\u2019t get the honest feedback that can help you improve the situation that inspired you to ask for input.<\/p>\n<div class=\"div-minispacer\"><\/div>\n<p>Among the reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The respondent is afraid of repercussion if he says what he thinks<\/strong>. For example, an employee may not trust a human resources survey asking for feedback about his manager, as he may be convinced that a \u201cwrong answer\u201d will put him first in line for the next layoff.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The topic is one that makes respondents uncomfortable<\/strong>, wherein any personal response would be perceived as embarrassing. The easy example is emotionally-charged subjects, such as an individual\u2019s medical history.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Organizations sometimes need to assure anonymity for compliance reasons<\/strong>, even if the respondents don\u2019t necessarily care. For instance, U.S. HIPAA regulations mandate the privacy of all patient data. The easiest way to comply with such regulations is to avoid collecting personally-identifiable information in the first place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Or, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.learnlab.org\/research\/wiki\/images\/a\/a8\/Tourangeau_SensitiveQuestions.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">researchers point out<\/a>, \u201cA sensitive survey item can be conceptualized as including three components related to the intrusiveness of the item content, the threat of potential consequences for responding to the item, and the social undesirability of a respondent\u2019s answer to the item.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"div-minispacer\"><\/div>\n<p>You might promise the respondents that the information you collect will be kept confidential \u2013 and you might even mean it. But if you have no way to connect the responses with the respondents, there\u2019s no grey area. While survey respondents do distinguish appropriately between anonymity and confidentiality, it certainly cannot hurt to assure them that the responses are anonymous.<\/p>\n<div class=\"div-minispacer\"><\/div>\n<p>Obviously, that means the survey really has to be anonymous. On the technical side of things, it means the software doesn\u2019t capture or cache the user\u2019s IP address, E-mail address, date and time of participation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"div-minispacer\"><\/div>\n<p>In Sogolytics, making a survey anonymous is easy: It\u2019s just one checkbox in the Settings page of the survey design module. (This feature is available in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/pricing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pro subscription<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"div-minispacer\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Anonymous_survey-1024x537.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3005 size-full\" title=\"Sogolytics Anonymous Survey\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Anonymous_survey-1024x537.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1015\" height=\"483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Anonymous_survey-1024x537.png 1015w, https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Anonymous_survey-1024x537-300x142.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1015px) 100vw, 1015px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You sincerely want to know what people think, or you wouldn\u2019t take the time to create a survey. But under some circumstances, respondents may be hesitant to share their true opinions. Unless you can confidently assure them that the responses truly are anonymous, you won\u2019t get the response rates you want, and you certainly won\u2019t get the honest feedback that can help you improve the situation that inspired you to ask for input. Among the reasons: The respondent is afraid of repercussion if he says what he thinks. For example, an employee may not trust a human resources survey asking for feedback about his manager, as he may be convinced that a \u201cwrong answer\u201d will put him first in line for the next layoff. The topic is one that makes respondents uncomfortable, wherein any personal response would be perceived as embarrassing. The easy example is emotionally-charged subjects, such as an individual\u2019s medical history. Organizations sometimes need to assure anonymity for compliance reasons, even if the respondents don\u2019t necessarily care. For instance, U.S. HIPAA regulations mandate the privacy of all patient data. The easiest way to comply with such regulations is to avoid collecting personally-identifiable information in the first place. Or, as researchers point out, \u201cA sensitive survey item can be conceptualized as including three components related to the intrusiveness of the item content, the threat of potential consequences for responding to the item, and the social undesirability of a respondent\u2019s answer to the item.\u201d You might promise the respondents that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,75],"tags":[220,211,256,39,60],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.7.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When to Make a Survey Anonymous - Sogolytics Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The main purpose of a survey is to get sincere response &amp; take relevant action. But under some circumstances, respondents may be hesitant to share their true opinions. Unless you can confidently assure them that the responses truly are anonymous. This is when anonymous surveys come into picture.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When to Make a Survey Anonymous - Sogolytics Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The main purpose of a survey is to get sincere response &amp; take relevant action. But under some circumstances, respondents may be hesitant to share their true opinions. Unless you can confidently assure them that the responses truly are anonymous. This is when anonymous surveys come into picture.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sogolytics Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-17T22:36:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-12-02T12:09:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/chalk-man.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"487\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"714\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hamid Farooqui\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/when-to-make-a-survey-anonymous\/\",\"name\":\"When to Make a Survey Anonymous - Sogolytics Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-17T22:36:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-12-02T12:09:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e26ade6499330428fc16c418b4883d37\"},\"description\":\"The main purpose of a survey is to get sincere response & take relevant action. 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