Survey Research
For nearly 40 years, the Tufts Office of Institutional Research has provided survey support to stakeholders across the university. Below you will find some helpful resources detailing our survey work and how we can assist you with your survey research efforts.
Surveys at Tufts collect valuable information from students, faculty, staff, and alumni. They are used to understand the perspectives and experiences of members of the university community, contribute to general knowledge about Tufts, and evaluate and support institutional priorities. However, over-surveying the university community can have negative implications for response rates, data quality, and the respondent experience. To ensure that surveys at Tufts can fulfill their objectives, OIR has adopted a survey review process.
In addition to OIR's core survey work, we offer consultation services for surveys that are associated with individual units at Tufts and may recommend external survey vendors for initiatives that fall outside the office’s scope or subject matter expertise. If you are interested in utilizing OIR’s survey support and consultation services, please read the Survey Review Process before submitting a Survey Proposal Form. An OIR staff member will follow up to discuss your proposal. Capacity to support your project will be determined following the discussion.
To review the survey proposal form prior to submitting, please refer to the PDF version as a guide.
Throughout the year, OIR administers numerous surveys to Tufts community members. The survey calendar lists approximate dates of currently planned surveys that OIR or others at Tufts will distribute to faculty, staff, and students during the academic year. If you are planning your own survey of any of these groups, we encourage you to check this calendar to avoid conflict with other surveys.
OIR administers surveys to the university community that are of broad institutional scope and that support the educational mission and strategic priorities of the Offices of the President and Provost. OIR manages administration, data preparation and storage, reporting, and analysis for these surveys. Detailed information on OIR’s core survey work will be outlined in OIR’s Survey Research Overview.
OIR is currently developing a webpage for survey resources. This new page will include survey research best practices, links to Qualtrics-related resources, and guidance on working with the Tufts Institutional Review Board (IRB).