Chapter 15: Cleaning and Reporting Complex Survey Data: What to do About Skip Logic and Conditional Response Options

Surveys are quite common in educational research and are frequently used in higher education for collecting information to demonstrate effectiveness and to identify areas for improvement (Kuh & Ikenberry, 2009). Student surveys are perhaps most commonly associated with assessment in higher education, as students are asked to evaluate the quality of their instruction, to rate their satisfaction on a variety of institutional elements, and to report their social and academic behaviors (Kuh & Ewell, 2010). However, surveys are an important means to gain information from other stakeholders as well, such as faculty, staff, and alumni (Cabrera et al., 2005; Kuh & Ewell, 2010). Surveying a variety of institutional affiliates, in addition to students, can provide multiple perspectives for institutional stakeholders as they attempt to gather data for the purposes of curriculum improvement, internal evaluation, accreditation, outcomes assessment, and strategic planning, just to name a few.