Designing a Post-race Survey
When all is said and done with your fitness event there is one last detail to be covered, the survey. Yes, it is difficult to get participants to fill them out and hard work to compile the results, but they are an essential part of a successful race. The information will help you to improve your event for next year.
Surveys gather opinions on what went smoothly with your race and identify where there were bumps in the road. You will be able to determine if the majority of your participants enjoyed the event and if they will be returning next year. You’ll also learn why some participants may not return.
Surveys are valuable tools not only for use with your participants, but for your volunteer team also. Adding an extra survey for this group will give you insight into the positives and negatives regarding the planning process and the race day. You can determine if you prepared your volunteers well, if there were enough meetings or learn opinions regarding the organization of the event.
The first step in developing your survey is to determine what is most important to you and your planning committee. What do you want to know?
You can write your questions in a variety of ways, but make sure they are close-ended. Consider setting aside a comments section for participants to add any thoughts or details that weren’t reflected in their answers.
I have always found a Likert scale to be the most effective for surveys. By designing questions in this way respondents can match their feelings to “strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree”. It can give you more information on how well they liked or disliked a specific component beyond “yes” and “no”.
Here are some other things to think about when developing your survey.
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Keep it short. If possible, keep your survey to one side of one page. You may decide you need to use both sides and that is fine, but don’t exceed one page. It is difficult to get people to fill out the surveys in the first place. You want to make it a quick process for them.
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Only ask one thing per question. For example, you wouldn’t want to write, “Did you enjoy the refreshments and prizes?” They may have enjoyed one, but not the other making it a difficult question to answer and giving you inaccurate feedback on one of the components.
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Use simple vocabulary to ensure that all who are completing the survey will understand your questions.
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List the questions in logical order regarding how they occurred. For example ask about the start, the finish line set-up, the refreshments, and then the prizes.
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Make the survey anonymous, but allow space for information regarding gender, age and if they are a repeat participant so you can use it to classify the information. You can also have an optional section if they would want to provide name and contact info.
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Determine how you will distribute the surveys. Often it is easier to get participants to fill out the surveys at the event rather than having them take it home. You can also email a survey or provide it online to be completed soon after the event.
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Consider a small incentive in exchange for a completed survey. This will increase the chances that your participants will follow through with completing the survey and returning it to you.
Photo by Alvaro Daniel Gonzalez Lamarque, morgueFile.com
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