Engagement methods
Tools and templates
Quick questions: Selecting a community engagement method
- Are you after breadth or depth of opinion? If you want large scale participation, choose a quantative method. If you want to understand why people think/ feel as they do, choose a qualitative method.
- Who are you looking to consult? Some approaches are more appropriate for involving less accessible groups e.g. focus groups
- How complex is the issue you want to consult people about? More complex issues favour a deliberative approach, such as a workshop or citizens' jury
- Is it possible to bring people together? If working across a large geographical area a quantitative approach may be suitable. E-involvement could also be considered
- How much money do you want to spend? The methods listed in this Guide vary enormously in expense from very little to run a public meeting, to hundreds of thousands of pounds to run a deliberative poll.
- How much time do you have available? If time is tight, some methods such as focus groups and public meetings are a lot quicker to set up than others like citizens' juries.
Quick questions: Practical considerations to bear in mind when choosing a method
- Make sure people feel safe - so think about the location, timing, transport links, group composition etc.
- Make sure people feel welcome - this is sometimes especially true for young people, older people and people from ethnic minorities, if they are not used to speaking at public events or with people they do not know. The choice of venue, refreshments, type of event and range of activities can help people feel more relaxed.
- If you have non-English speakers, use interpreters and if possible a facilitator who speaks the participants' language
- If participants are blind or deaf, provide appropriate support, for example, induction loops, signers, Braille materials
- If participants are disabled, is the venue you have chosen accessible?
- If participants are from particular faith communities are the meetings being held at an appropriate time, on an appropriate day and in a suitable venue?
- Do you need to arrange childcare provision?
Hints and tips for questionnaire design
- Check that a questionnaire is an appropriate tool to use - it is if
- you have clear questions you want to ask and can ask them in a systematic way
- you have evidence about people's opinions and want to confirm this evidence
- you want to collect numerical data
otherwise, you might want to think about other ways of collecting data.
- Don't reinvent the wheel - asking questions which have been asked before makes your life easier and also enables you to compare answers with past surveys and other services. Look out for examples of other surveys done in your organisation, externally etc.
- Think about length - an optimum length for a general public questionnaire is one that takes about 15 minutes to complete. This roughly translates to about 8-10 sides of A4. Try not to have more than 4 or five discrete sections in this length of questionnaire. For some groups and some purposes, shorter questionnaires may work better and get a higher response rate.
- Think about language - for example, whether you need to translate the questionnaire. Try and keep things clear and simple, with no jargon! Some people find reading and writing difficult - you may want to have people who can help members of the public complete the questionnaire so that you do not miss out on hearing their views.
- Pilot the questionnaire - time how long it takes a variety of people to complete, and check for ease of understanding, typos, relevance etc
- Use different types of questions - closed questions allowing participants to give answers according to a list, satisfaction rating scales with overall service and elements of it, ratings of strengths and weaknesses, suggestions for improvement
- But take care with open questions - they can take a lot of time and money to analyse; include a maximum of two as a rule of thumb (e.g. explaining why people are particularly satisfied or dissatisfied with a service, and as a "catch-all" closing question).
- Your questionnaire should be a funnel - allowing people to give general information about a service, moving on to more specific topics later in the questionnaire. The questionnaire should have a logical flow; perhaps following a customer's service experience from contact to resolution. Also try to include brief introductions and explanatory text.
- Take care with sensitive questions (e.g. about income, sexuality, perpetration of crime, detailed demographic questions) - these might put people off from taking part. Take care to place sensitive questions appropriately, perhaps in the middle when people have got into the flow of answering, or right at the end.
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