Receiving feedback is important for any organization. The private sector has the luxury in most cases to watch their sales figures. If people are unhappy with their product or services then they will cease to buy it and sales will decrease. The public sector does not have this luxury. Whether the service is good or not, people of every community actually have little choice as to who will police their streets or collect their refuse.

However, there are methods to determine the opinions and attitudes of a community. Once this information is compiled the results can be used to analyze a program's effectiveness and efficiency. These surveys can also help managers determine citizens perceptions of particular departments and possible needs that have not yet been met.

One such method that has been used in many communities is the Citizen Survey. If the survey is constructed properly they can yield a great amount of information. However, if they are not constructed properly, the results can be misinterpreted and abused. The following information will help assist city staff or elected officials develop a survey to gain feedback concerning their services.

Questions are classified into two categories, (1) factual and (2) opinion and attitude questions. Factual questions are those objective questions that elicit background information such as age, gender, income bracket etc. By obtaining background information it is easier to determine attitudes and behaviors of different social groups.

Opinion and attitude questions are much more difficult to construct and must be carefully warded. An attitude refers to a mental feeling or position towards something. For example someone's prejudices or convictions. An opinion is the actual expression of an attitude. If a citizen were to state that, "There is a great need to preserve older housing within a community," it would be an opinion against possible demolition of older structures. But, the persons attitude could be more general, possibly towards preserving all older structures and a belief against commercial development in older neighborhoods.

There may be no reason or need to solicit citizens attitudes in most communities. But, their opinions can be useful. Constructing a questionnaire that will determine a persons attitude is much more difficult and should be done by someone with expertise in the field. Opinion surveys can be constructed by city staff members.

There are basically three types of question structures, (1) closed-ended questions (2) open-ended questions and (3) contingency questions. In a closed-ended question the respondents are given a set of answers to choose from. These are used if the survey question wants the respondent to express an agreement or disagreement with a subject. For example:

"The police department is doing all it can to prevent drug sales in the downtown area?"
_____Strongly agree
_____Agree
_____Disagree
_____Strongly disagree

An open-ended question can help determine how the respondent arrived at the particular response. This enables a respondent to express their views without being forced to choose among certain answers. An open and closed-ended question can be used together. After the preceding question you can ask the respondent to explain further. For example, if a respondent answered "strongly disagree" they would be able to explain their answer by stating that they believe there are not enough patrol cars in the downtown area to properly watch for drug dealers.

Contingency questions are questions that are relevant to some citizens but may be irrelevant to others. You may want to ask a question concerning refuse collection. Many communities may collect refuse for all dwellings except apartment houses with four or more units. These people must contract out for this service. Therefore questions concerning refuse collection by the public works department is irrelevant to many apartment dwellers.

However, this does not mean you would be unable to ask the question. Researchers use "filter questions" to enable respondents to answer relevant questions. For example:

3. "Is your refuse collected by the Public Works Department?"
____No � Go to Question #5
____Yes � Answer the following question

4. "Would you rather have your refuse collected once a week or bi-weekly?"
____Once a week
____Bi-weekly

The second part of this article will explain question formats, question sequence, bias and problems to avoid and the means of collecting data i.e. telephone surveys, mailing etc., and population sampling. �

May 1991 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 5