From where did you obtain your copy of EASY∙GEN? _________________________
Please mail this form with a check for $125 ($95 until 12/31/92) to:
William Steinberg Consultants Inc.
P.O. Box 1754
Champlain, NY 12919
Tel. (514) 483-6954
FAX (514) 483-6660
If you register, you will receive a regular Survey Disk which will
hold the data of up to 100 respondents, a professionally printed EASY∙GEN
manual which includes valuable guidelines on how to properly conduct an
employee attitude survey and a comprehensive sample survey. You will also
get our regular order form for future Survey Disk orders along with a
coupon which is good for a 20% discount on any orders that you place with
us. We give a 20% reduction to our Shareware clients because our marketing
costs are less. You will also get free telephone support and free upgrades
to EASY∙GEN whenever they are released.
You will find installation instructions in section 2.0 of the manual
text below. We suggest that you print this entire manual for easy
reference. The abbreviated manual text follows. If you have any questions
please call Bill Steinberg at (514) 483-6954.
SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT
Please read this License Agreement (hereinafter "AGREEMENT") carefully and
be sure you accept its terms before you use EASY∙GEN. If you use EASY∙GEN,
this will signify that you consent to be bound by the terms of this
AGREEMENT.
1. LICENSE
William Steinberg Consultants Inc (hereinafter "WSC") grants to you and you
accept a non-exclusive, personal and non-transferable license to use the
EASY∙GEN programs, data files, diskettes and manual (hereinafter
"EASY∙GEN").
2. COPYRIGHT
EASY∙GEN and its documentation are copyrighted with all rights reserved.
WSC retains the copyright protection of EASY∙GEN. Under copyright laws, you
agree not to transfer EASY∙GEN in any form to any party without prior
written consent of WSC except that you may make copies of this Shareware
version of EASY∙GEN provided that no parts of it are altered or removed.
If you do transfer this version of EASY∙GEN or a copy of it, you must inform
the recipient that the registration fee must be paid if continued use is to
be made of the product.
3. LIMITATIONS ON LICENSE
Save and except as discussed in paragraph 2 above, you may not transfer,
sub-license, lease or rent, time-share or lend EASY∙GEN or any of your
rights under this AGREEMENT except by prior written consent from WSC.
You may not alter, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or reverse
translate or in any other way derive any source code from EASY∙GEN. You may
not remove or obscure WSC's copyright and trademark notices in either hard
copy or machine-readable portions of EASY∙GEN.
4. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
WSC provides EASY∙GEN "As Is" without warranty of any kind, either express
or implied, including the implied warranties of fitness for a particular
purpose or merchantability.
5. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
In no event shall WSC or anyone else involved in the creation, production
or delivery of EASY∙GEN be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental,
special, consequential or other damages arising out of the use of EASY∙GEN
by any person, whether or not WSC has been informed of the possibility of
such damages in advance. WSC's total liability with respect to all causes
of action together shall not exceed the amounts paid by you to WSC for
EASY∙GEN. These limitations apply to all causes of action, including,
but not limited to, breach of contract, breach of warranty, negligence,
strict liability, misrepresentation and other torts. Some jurisdictions
do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental consequential
damages, so the above exclusion or limitation may not apply to you.
In such case, liabilities shall be limited to a refund of EASY∙GEN's
purchase price.
6. TERM
This license is effective until terminated. It will terminate if you fail
to comply with any term or condition of this license agreement. You are
obligated, upon termination, to return EASY∙GEN together with all copies,
modifications and merged portions in any form.
7. LAW
This AGREEMENT shall be governed by the laws of the State of New York and
shall inure to the benefit of WSC, its successors, and assigns.
8. PREAMBLE
The preamble constitutes an integral part of this agreement.
9. ENFORCEABILITY
The invalidity or unenforceability of any provisions of this AGREEMENT
shall not affect the remaining provisions hereof.
10. SOLE AGREEMENT
This is the only AGREEMENT between you and WSC. It cannot and shall not be
modified unless in writing and signed both by you and an authorized officer
of WSC.
11. MISCELLANEOUS
WSC shall not be liable for any default resulting from any circumstance
beyond the reasonable control of WSC.
INDEX
1.0 Overview
2.0 Installation
3.0 Working with the Databases
3.1 Topics
3.1.1 Adding a Topic
3.1.2 Changing the Name of a Topic
3.1.3 Deleting a Topic
3.1.4 Printing a List of Topics and Questions
3.2 Questions
3.2.1 Adding Questions
3.2.2 Modifying Questions
3.2.3 Deleting Questions
3.3 Open-Ended Questions
3.3.1 Adding Questions
3.3.2 Modifying Questions
3.3.3 Deleting Questions
3.4 Formats
3.4.1 Adding Formats
3.4.2 Modifying Formats
3.4.3 Deleting Formats
3.5 Demographics
3.5.1 Adding a Demographic Category
3.5.2 Modifying a Demographic Category
3.5.3 Deleting a Demographic Category
4.0 Creating a Survey Questionnaire
4.1 Creating a New Questionnaire
4.1.1 Introductory Text
4.1.2 Selecting the Questions
4.1.3 Open-Ended Questions
4.1.4 Demographic Categories
4.2 Editing a Questionnaire
4.2.1 Introductory Text
4.2.2 Questions
4.2.3 Open-Ended Questions
4.2.4 Demographic Categories
4.3 Deleting a Questionnaire
4.4 Duplicating a Survey
4.5 Creating a Survey Disk, Printed Questionnaire
5.0 Conducting the Survey
5.1 Interactive Survey
5.2 Printed Questionnaire Survey
6.0 Survey Analysis
6.1 Creating Reports
6.1.1 Type
6.1.2 Format
6.1.3 Detail
6.1.4 Group
6.1.5 Xgroup
6.1.6 Omit
6.1.7 Include
6.1.8 Report
6.1.9 Graphic Reports
6.1.9.1 Demographic Data Graphs
6.1.10 Printing Graphs
6.1.11 Tabular Reports
6.1.12 Printing Tables
6.1.13 Adjusting the Significant Difference Indicator
6.1.14 Open-Ended Question Listings
6.1.15 Exit
7.0 Other Uses of EASY∙GEN
1.0 Overview
EASY∙GEN allows you to create, administer and analyze an employee
attitude survey. This section of the manual provides an overview of how
EASY∙GEN works. Subsequent sections explain how the tool works in detail.
It is recommended that you print and read the entire manual once before
using EASY∙GEN.
To create a custom survey you must first be sure that the questions
you wish to ask are in the databases. EASY∙GEN comes with a database of
over 500 questions covering 41 topics. If there are topics that you wish to
include which are not listed, you may add them. You may also add, modify or
delete questions for any topic.
You will notice that the questions are really question endings. The
endings have been designed to fit with any of four basic question openings
(referred to as Formats in EASY∙GEN). There is a frequency format - "How
often do you see this organization as ...", an extent format - "To what
extent do you consider this organization to be ...", an agree/disagree
format - "Do you agree that this organization is ..." and a ratings format
- "How would you rate this organization in terms of being ...". Each format
has its own answer scale.
Any questions that you add must fit with at least one of these four
formats. After reviewing the questions, you should have no trouble creating
other questions in the correct style. You may also create your own question
formats as long as they will fit with one of the answer scales. For
example, you may use "How frequently do you view this organization as ..."
instead of "How often do you see this organization as ...".
There is also a database of demographic categories (questions) which
you may include in your survey. You may add, modify or delete categories in
this database.
Once you have worked with the databases and are satisfied that they
contain all the topics, questions and formats that you wish to use, you can
create your custom survey questionnaire. To create a survey you simply have
to give it a short name, a title and an introduction. You can then select
the demographic categories that you would like to include in your survey.
Finally, you select the questions that you wish to use and the format in
which you want each question presented. In addition to the quantitative
questions, EASY∙GEN also permits you to include open-ended qualitative
questions in your survey.
You may generate either printed questionnaires and answer sheets, or a
diskette which will allow your respondents to answer the questions on their
PCs.
Data is collected on Survey Disks. A single disk will normally hold
the data of 100 respondents. However, the Shareware Survey Disk will only
hold the data of 10 respondents. Additional Survey Disks may be ordered.
If you should choose the printed questionnaire option, EASY∙GEN will
present a data-entry screen on which you can quickly input the data from
the answer sheets. If you select the disk option, the data will be
collected as the respondents answer the questions.
Once the survey data has been collected, the data from all the disks
that you have used can be loaded onto your hard disk and you can produce
graphs and tables, both printed and on the screen, showing the survey
results. Data can be shown by topic or by individual question and can be
broken down by demographic category. If you have conducted the same survey
at regular intervals, graphs showing trends for the three most recent
surveys can be produced.
2.0 Installation
To run EASY∙GEN you must have 640K RAM, a hard disk, a color monitor
or a monochrome monitor with a graphics card, a dot-matrix or a laser
printer (only the HP and compatible laser printers are fully supported by
EASY∙GEN) and DOS 3.3 or higher. EASY∙GEN must be installed on your hard
disk before you can use it. To install EASY∙GEN, put Program Disk 1 in your
A Drive. At the A> prompt, type "INSTALL" without the quotes and press the
ENTER key.
You will be asked to enter the full directory name of the directory
into which you would like to load the EASY∙GEN files. If the directory that
you specify does not exist, it will be created. If you press the ENTER key
without entering the directory name, the default will be used and the files
will be put in the EASYGEN directory of your C Drive.
You will then be asked to enter the full directory name of the
directory into which the EASYGEN.BAT file should be placed. This directory
must exist; it will not be created. If you press the ENTER key without
entering the directory name, the default will be used and the file will be
put on the root directory of your C Drive.
You will be asked to verify that the directories which you selected
are correct and then the files will be copied. You will be prompted when it
is time to put Program Disk 2 in the A Drive. To run EASY∙GEN, go to the
directory which contains the EASYGEN.BAT file and enter EASYGEN.
To run EASY∙GEN properly, the Files parameter in the CONFIG.SYS file
on your root directory must be 40 or higher. If you do not know how to
check or change this parameter, check your DOS manual or call Bill
Steinberg at (514) 483-6954.
After you start EASY∙GEN you can tell the system which type of printer
and monitor you are using. If you have a dot-matrix printer and a color
monitor, you do not need to do this since these are the default selections.
If you are using a laser printer and/or a monochrome monitor, select the
"Options" choice from the main menu by moving the highlight bar with the
cursor keys and pressing the ENTER key.
You will be asked to identify your printer type. Enter "2" if you are
using a laser printer or "0" if you are using a dot-matrix printer. You
will also be asked if you are using a color monitor. Enter "Y" if yes or
"N" if no. These selections will be saved. If you change your monitor or
printer, you can change your selections.
The "Options" screen contains four additional choices. The "Std Dev
Tol" (Standard Deviation Tolerance) is discussed in the Survey Results
section of the manual. If you would like your survey printed with a
separate answer sheet, leave the "Separate Answer Sheet" choice set to "Y".
If you would prefer to have a questionnaire printed with space for the
answers on the questionnaire instead of on a separate answer sheet, enter
"N".
The third choice, "Spread Out Questions", affects the order in which
questions appear on the questionnaire. If you leave the selection at "Y",
questions within a topic (which are usually selected one after another)
will be spread out as much as possible. This helps to eliminate the "Halo
Effect". The "Halo Effect" causes responses to similar questions which are
grouped together to be more positive or more negative (ie. more extreme)
than they would be if they were spread out. If you change the selection to
"N", questions will be printed in the order in which you had selected them
subject to the constraint that all questions with the same answer scale are
grouped together.
The final choice, "Original Answer Scale", relates only to graphs of questions broken down by a demographic category. Select "Y" if you would like to see the original answer scale (eg. Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) on the Y-Axis instead of the standard answer scale (Very Negative to Very Positive).
3.0 Working with the Databases
Before you begin working with the databases, you may wish to review
the topics and questions and make notes of the changes and additions that
you want to make. After you have completed making all the desired changes
to the topics and/or questions on the PC, you may wish to print a current
listing of all the topics and questions to serve as a worksheet for
selecting questions for the survey. You may do this by pressing the F5 key
from the Topics window.
To work with the Topics, Questions, Open-Ended Questions, Formats or
Demographics databases select the "Questions" option from the main menu. To
select the "Questions" option, use the cursor keys to move the highlight
bar to that option and then press the ENTER key. You may also type "Q", the
first letter of the option that you wish to select. On all EASY∙GEN menus
you may use either of these methods to select a menu option.
3.1 Topics
After you select the "Questions" option you will see part of the list
of topics in the foreground window with one topic highlighted. The
background window contains the questions related to the highlighted topic.
To move through the list of topics use the up/down arrow keys, or, to move
more quickly, the page up/page down keys. In order to get to the desired
topic immediately, you can type the first letter of the topic.
3.1.1 Adding a Topic
To add a new topic, press the F2 key and then enter the name of the
new topic. You will then want to put questions into the database. This is
discussed in the Questions section of the manual.
3.1.2 Changing the Name of a Topic
To modify the name of a topic, move the highlight bar until the topic
name is highlighted and then press the F3 key. Type in the new name and
press the ENTER key.
3.1.3 Deleting a Topic
To delete a topic and all the questions associated with that topic,
move the highlight bar to the topic that you wish to delete and press the
F4 key. Then you will be asked to press the DEL key to confirm the
deletion. If you press the ESC key you can exit and the topic will not be
erased.
You should not erase topics or questions which had been used in
previous surveys because this will make it impossible to produce graphs
showing trends for the topics or questions, that have been erased.
3.1.4 Printing a List of Topics and Questions
After you have finished making changes to the Topics and/or related
Questions databases you can produce an updated list of these topics and
questions by pressing the F5 key. You will then have the option of printing
a list of just the topics, all the topics with their associated questions
or just the questions for the highlighted topic. You will also be able to
print all the open-ended questions for all the topics or just for the
highlighted topic.
3.2 Questions
To add, modify or delete questions for a topic, move the highlight bar
to the desired topic and then press the right arrow key or the ENTER key to
activate the questions window.
3.2.1 Adding Questions
To add a question to the chosen topic press the F2 key and then enter
the question ending. Do not put a period or question mark at the end. The
new question ending must fit with at least one of the format types.
After you have entered the question you will be asked to identify the
question bias (positive or negative). This is done by moving the highlight
bar over the positive or negative selection and pressing the ENTER key.
A question has a positive bias if a positive response (ie. very
frequently, to a large extent, strong agreement or excellent) indicates a
high score with respect to the topic. For example, "flexible" has a
positive bias with respect to the Innovation topic. A question has a
negative bias if a positive response indicates a low score with respect to
the topic. For example, "rigid" has a negative bias with respect to the
Innovation topic because an organization that is very frequently viewed as
rigid should get a low score with respect to the Innovation topic. In other
words, if an organization is "flexible" then there is a lot of Innovation
and the correct bias is positive; if the organization is "rigid" then there
is little Innovation and the correct bias is negative.
It is very important that the correct bias be selected for each
question in order to make the scoring accurate. Usually, positive sounding
questions have a positive bias and negative sounding ones have a negative
bias but this is not always the case. For example, "flexible" has a
positive bias with respect to the Innovation topic but a negative bias with
respect to the Control topic.
3.2.2 Modifying Questions
To change the wording and/or bias of an existing question use the
up/down arrow keys or the page up/page down keys to move the highlight bar
to the desired question and then press the F3 key. After you make changes
you will be asked to select the correct bias for the question.
3.2.3 Deleting Questions
To delete a question, move the highlight bar to the desired question
and press the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to confirm the
deletion. If you press the ESC key you can exit and the question will not
be erased. You should not delete questions that have been used in previous
surveys because this will make it impossible to produce graphs showing
trends for the question that has been erased.
3.3 Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions can provide valuable qualitative data. EASY∙GEN
allows you to use open-ended questions related to a specific topic or, if
the question is general in nature, you can put it in a "General" topic. To
add, modify or delete open-ended questions for a topic, move the highlight
bar to the desired topic and then press the right arrow key twice to
activate the open-ended questions window.
3.3.1 Adding Questions
To add a question to the chosen topic press the F2 key and then enter
the complete question, not just the question ending.
3.3.2 Modifying Questions
To change the wording of an existing question use the up/down arrow
keys or the page up/page down keys to move the highlight bar to the desired
question and then press the F3 key.
3.3.3 Deleting Questions
To delete a question, move the highlight bar to the desired question
and press the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to confirm the
deletion. If you press the ESC key you can exit and the question will not
be erased. You should not delete questions that have been used in previous
surveys because it will then be impossible to retrieve the answers to the
question that had been erased.
3.4 Formats
To add, modify or delete a format (question opening) use the
right/left arrow keys to move the highlight bar that is on the top of the
screen to the "Format" option.
3.4.1 Adding Formats
To add a format, press the F2 key and enter the new question opening.
The format must fit with one of the four answer scales: Extent, Rating,
Frequency or Agree/Disagree.
After you enter the format you will be asked to indicate the answer
scale that goes with the format. Move the highlight bar to the appropriate
answer scale and press the ENTER key. If none of the answer scales is
appropriate, press the ESC key and re-enter a format that will fit with one
of the answer scales.
3.4.2 Modifying Formats
To modify an existing format, use the up/down arrow keys to move the
highlight bar to the format you wish to change and then press the F3 key.
After you make the changes you will be asked to choose the appropriate
answer scale for the new format.
3.4.3 Deleting Formats
To delete a format, move the highlight bar to the format that you wish
to delete and press the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to
confirm the deletion. It is recommended that you keep at least one format
for each answer scale.
3.5 Demographics
An important feature of EASY∙GEN is the ability to include questions
related to demographic categories (Sex, Age, Location, etc.) in your
survey. When you analyze your survey data, you will be able to get
breakdowns by the demographic categories that you included in your survey.
Before you can put a demographic category into your survey, it must be in
the Demographics database. To add, modify or delete a demographic category,
use the left/right arrow keys to move the highlight bar that is on the top
of the screen to the "Demographics" option.
3.5.1 Adding a Demographic Category
To add a demographic category, press the F2 key and then you will be
asked to enter the category name. You may also enter a question to go with
the category. If you do not enter a question, then the category name
followed by a question mark will be used as the question (eg. Location?).
If you enter a question, it will be used (eg. In what department do you
work?). Finally you will be asked to indicate if you want to allow a "Don't
know" choice in the responses to the question.
You will then be shown a screen which you can use to enter the group
titles (ie. response choices for the question) for the demographic
category. For detailed instructions on how to use the function keys press
the F1 key.
To add a group title, move the highlight bar to the appropriate number
and enter the title. Continue in this manner until all the titles have been
entered, up to a maximum of nine groups. If you wish to add a title where
one already exists, move the highlight bar to the correct spot and press
the F2 key. The other titles will be moved down to allow you to add the new
title.
To modify an existing title, move the highlight bar to the title and
press the F3 key. You may then make the necessary changes. To delete a
title, move the highlight bar to the title and press the F4 key.
If you wish to move a title, position the highlight bar over the title
that you wish to move and press the F5 key. Then move the highlight bar to
the location where you want to place the title and press the ENTER key. All
the other titles will be moved to make room for the change.
You may use the ESC key in the middle of an editing operation to
cancel it. When you are finished entering all the group titles, press the
F10 key.
3.5.2 Modifying a Demographic Category
To modify the name of a demographic category, its associated question,
or its group titles, move the highlight bar to the category and press the
F3 key. You may then make any changes in the same fashion as described
above.
3.5.3 Deleting a Demographic Category
To delete a demographic category, move the highlight bar to the
category and press the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to
confirm the deletion. You should not delete demographic categories that had
been used in previous surveys because this will make it impossible to
create reports with breakdowns of the data based on the demographic
categories that have been erased.
4.0 Creating a Survey Questionnaire
To create, edit or delete a survey questionnaire select the "Survey"
option from the main menu.
4.1 Creating a New Questionnaire
To create a new questionnaire press the F2 key. You will be asked to
enter a short title, one to eight letters long, and a descriptive title for
the questionnaire. Press the ENTER key to record this information. You will
then be asked to enter the name of your organization. This latter
information is optional; it will appear on the top of the questionnaire if
you enter it. Next you will be given the option of 1) entering an
introduction to the questionnaire, 2) choosing the questions, 3) selecting
the open-ended questions, if any, to be included, 4) selecting the
demographic categories to be included or 5) producing the Survey disk
and/or printed questionnaire(s) and answer sheet(s). Usually you will use
all five options, one after the other, and then you will select the "Exit"
option.
4.1.1 Introductory Text
To add the introductory text, use the left/right arrow keys to move
the highlight bar to the "Text" option and press the ENTER key. Type in the
introduction and press the F3 key when you are finished. Selecting the
4.1.2 Questions
After you have entered the introductory text you will want to select
the questions for your survey. Move the highlight bar to the "Questions"
option and press the ENTER key. You will see a window with no included
questions. Press the F2 key to select questions for the questionnaire.
The foreground window will contain the list of topics and the
background window will contain the questions for the highlighted topic.
Move the highlight bar to the topic that contains the question(s) that you
wish to select. Press ENTER or the right arrow key to activate the
questions window. Move the highlight bar to the desired question and press
the ENTER key. If there are other questions that you wish to select in the
same topic, move the highlight bar to those questions and press the ENTER
key. When you have finished press the left arrow key to return to the
topics window. Then you may select questions from other topics in the same
fashion. The maximum number of questions that you may select for one
questionnaire is 200. When you have completed selecting the questions for
your questionnaire press the ESC key.
You will now be asked to choose the format (question opening) for each
question that you selected. For each question ending shown in the box on
the top of the screen, move the highlight bar to the format that you wish
to use and press the ENTER key. EASY∙GEN will present the questions, one at
a time, until you have selected formats for each of them.
You will now see the list of questions that you selected and you may
add more questions by pressing the F2 key again. You may change the opening
of a question by moving the highlight bar to the question and pressing the
F3 key or you may delete the highlighted question by pressing the F4 key.
When you are satisfied with the contents of the questionnaire press the ESC
key.
4.1.3 Open-Ended Questions
If you wish to include open-ended questions in your survey, move the
highlight bar to the "Open-Ended" option and press the ENTER key. You will
see a box with no included questions. Press the F2 key to add a question.
The foreground window will contain the list of topics and the
background window will contain the open-ended questions for the highlighted
topic. Move the highlight bar to the topic that contains the question(s)
that you wish to select. Press ENTER or the right arrow key to activate the
questions window. Move the highlight bar to the desired question and press
the ENTER key. If there are other questions that you wish to select in the
same topic, move the highlight bar to those questions and press the ENTER
key. When you have finished press the left arrow key to return to the
topics window. Then you may select questions from other topics in the same
fashion. When you have completed selecting the questions for your
questionnaire press the ESC key. If you want to delete one of the questions
that you have already selected, move the highlight bar to that question and
press the F4 key.
4.1.4 Demographic Categories
You will now want to select the demographic categories to be included
in your survey. Move the highlight bar to the "Demographics" option and
press the ENTER key. You will see a box with no included categories. Press
the F2 key to add a demographic category (question). You will see a list of
categories to choose from. Move the highlight bar to the one that you want
to include and press the ENTER key. If you want to delete one of the
categories that you have selected, move the highlight bar to that category
and press the F4 key.
4.2 Editing a Questionnaire
To edit an existing questionnaire, select the "Survey" option from the
main menu. Then use the up/down arrow keys to move the highlight bar to the
survey that you wish to change and press the ENTER key. You will see the
date on which the questionnaire had been created and the date on which it
was last used. Press the ENTER key to modify the questionnaire. You will
have the option of editing the introductory text, editing the questions,
changing the selected open-ended questions, changing the selected
demographic categories and/or producing the Survey Disk/printed
questionnaire(s).
4.2.1 Introductory Text
To edit the introductory text, select the "Text" option and press the
ENTER key. Make the changes and press the F3 key when you are finished.
4.2.2 Questions
To edit the survey questions, select the "Questions" option and press
the ENTER key. You may add, change or delete questions.
To add questions press the F2 key and add questions in the same manner
as described above in the section on selecting questions for a new
questionnaire.
To edit a question, move the highlight bar to the question, the format
of which you wish to change, and press the F3 key. Then select the new
format and press the ENTER key. It is not possible to change the wording of
the question ending at this point. If you wish to do this you must first
change the question in the Question database and then add it to the
questionnaire. You can then delete the old question.
To delete a question move the highlight bar to the question and press
the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to confirm the deletion.
You should not delete questions if the questionnaire had been used
previously. If you do, it will be impossible to produce graphs showing
trends for this question.
4.2.3 Open-Ended Questions
To change the open-ended questions that are included in the survey,
move the highlight bar to the "Open-Ended" option and press the ENTER key.
To add questions press the F2 key and add questions in the same manner
as described above in the section on selecting questions for a new
questionnaire.
To delete a question move the highlight bar to the question and press
the F4 key. You will be asked to press the DEL key to confirm the deletion.
You should not delete questions if the questionnaire had been used
previously. If you do, it will be impossible to retrieve answers for these
questions.
If you wish to change the wording of an open-ended question, you must
first change the wording in the Open-Ended Questions database and then add
the question to the questionnaire. You can then delete the old question.
4.2.4 Demographic Categories
To change the demographic categories that are included in the survey,
move the highlight bar to the "Demographics" option and press the ENTER
key. Press the F2 key to add new categories. To delete a category, move the
highlight bar to the category and press the F4 key. You should not delete
demographic categories that had been used in previous surveys because this
will make it impossible to create reports with breakdowns of the data based
on the demographic categories that have been erased.
4.3 Deleting a Questionnaire
To delete an entire questionnaire move the highlight bar to the name
of the survey you wish to delete and press the F4 key. You will be asked to
press the DEL key to confirm the deletion.
4.4 Duplicating a Survey
Sometimes you may wish to create a survey which differs only slightly
from an existing survey in order to use it with a different group of
respondents. For example, consultants may have a core survey and wish to
use variations with different organizations. You can do this by copying the
original survey and then making the changes to the copy. Select the survey
that you wish to copy by moving the highlight bar to your choice and
pressing the F10 key. Give the duplicate survey a new identifier and a
title. The title does not have to be different but the identifier must be
unique.
Please note that this capability should not be used when you wish to
reuse a survey with a few changes but with the same type of respondents at
a later point in time. In this case you must make the changes to the
original survey and you will then be able to see trends for questions and
topics which are on both versions of the survey. Trend analysis cannot be
done between two surveys with different identifiers. Duplicating a survey
should only be done when you need similar surveys for different sets of
respondents.
4.5 Creating a Survey Disk, Printed Questionnaire
After you have created a new questionnaire or modified an existing
one, you will want to create a Survey Disk(s) to run the survey (and/or
collect the data if you use printed questionnaires). If you have just
finished creating or modifying a questionnaire, select the "Disk/List"
option at the bottom of the screen to do this. If you are not at this
screen, return to the main menu and select the "Survey" option. Then select
the desired survey and confirm the selection on the following screen. You
will then be able to select the "Disk/List" option.
You will have the option of printing one or more copies of your questionnaire and/or answer sheet or of sending the questionnaire data to a file. Enter "F" to send the questionnaire data to a file named QNR.TXT. If you are using a separate answer sheet, the file with the answer sheet data is named ANS.TXT. These files, which are in ASCII format, can be read and edited by all popular word processors. When editing the files, please be careful not to change the order of the questions or else the data entry screen created by the Survey Disk will not match your questionnaire/answer sheet.
If you select the default option, print, you will be asked to indicate the number of questionnaires and answer sheets you would like to print. It is advisable to print at least one questionnaire for review purposes before you create a Survey Disk. Once a questionnaire has been put on a Survey Disk, the disk can not be changed. If you will not be using printed questionnaires and answer sheets and if you are sure that you are happy with the contents of the questionnaire, you can press the ENTER key and nothing will be printed.
You will then be asked to confirm that you are ready to create a
Survey Disk. Put an unused Survey Disk in Drive A and select "Yes". After
the disk has been created, put some identification such as the date and the
short title of the questionnaire on the label.
After you have created a Survey Disk, you will be asked if you wish to
create another one. Each Survey Disk will hold the data for a maximum of
100 respondents (10 in the case of the Shareware Survey Disk) and you may
create as many as you will need. Please note that you may not be able to
get a full 100 respondents on a disk if all of the following conditions
apply: you are using 5.25" disks; there are a number of open-ended
questions; and your respondents have given long answers to these questions.
In most situations, your Survey Disk will have ample capacity to hold the
data of 100 respondents.
You do not have to create all the Survey Disks for your survey at one
time. If you need to create more at a later time you may do so provided
that the questionnaire has not been modified.
When you come to create more Survey Disks, you will be warned that you
have already created "n" Survey Disks for the survey and asked if you wish
to create another one for the same survey (ie. a disk whose data will be
merged with the data on the other Survey Disks that you had previously
created) or if you want to create a disk(s) for running a new generation of
the survey. If you wish to create another disk for the same generation of
the survey, press the F2 key; if you wish to create a Survey Disk for a new
generation of the survey, press the F3 key.
If you will use printed questionnaires and answer sheets to survey
your respondents, the Survey Disks will be required to collect the data
from the answer sheets. If you will not use printed questionnaires, then
the Survey Disks will be used to present the questions to your respondents.
5.0 Conducting the Survey
If sufficient PCs exist, it is simplest to interactively survey your
respondents with the Survey Disks. If this is not the case then you can use
the printed questionnaires and copy the data from the answer sheets onto
the Survey Disks.
5.1 Interactive Survey
You may survey a maximum of 100 respondents on a Survey Disk (10 in
the case of the Shareware Survey Disk). To survey a group, attach to the
Survey Disk envelope with tape (do not use a paper clip, staple or anything
metallic) a circulation list with the names of the people whom you wish to
survey. Include a set of instructions which explain why you are conducting
the survey and inform those being surveyed that their feedback is
anonymous. Respondents will be able to take the survey by putting the
Survey Disk in the A Drive and entering SURVEY. When a person has completed
the survey he or she simply crosses his or her name off the list and passes
the disk to anyone else on the list. When the last person has finished the
survey the disk should be returned to a secretary who will return it to
you.
5.2 Printed Questionnaire Survey
If the people you wish to survey do not have access to a sufficient
number of PCs or if they would feel more comfortable using printed
questionnaires, then you may use the following procedure to conduct your
survey.
First print the number of questionnaires and answer sheets that you
will require (this is described in the Creating a Survey Disk, Printed
Questionnaire section above). Call a meeting and explain the rationale for
the survey. You can have everyone complete the survey at the same time at
the meeting. The completed answer sheets should be deposited in a box and
you should leave the room after you have given the instructions.
Alternately, you can use the same procedure as for the interactive
survey except that you will circulate the instructions, questionnaire and
answer sheets instead of the Survey Disk.
After you have all the answer sheets, put the Survey Disk in the A
Drive and enter SURVEY. PRESS THE A KEY WHEN YOU SEE THE MESSAGE TELLING
YOU TO PRESS THE ENTER KEY TO BEGIN. DO NOT PRESS THE ENTER KEY. At the
Administrative Functions menu select the "Answer Sheet" option to copy the
data from your respondents' answer sheets onto the Survey Disk. Enter the
data on the data entry screen and press the F3 key after you have entered
all the data from the answer sheet. You will then be asked if you wish to
review the responses that you have copied. If necessary, correct any errors
that you may have made in copying the data. You will then be able to enter
the text of the answers to any open-ended questions. You may then the data
from the next answer sheet and so on. You do not have to enter the data
from all the answer sheets at one sitting. At the completion of any answer
sheet you can select the "Exit" option and return at another time.
6.0 Survey Analysis
After you have collected the survey data from your respondents, in order to see the results, select the "Analysis" option from the main menu to get to the Survey Analysis menu. Next, you must copy the data from your Survey
Disk(s) to your hard disk. To do this select the "Copy" option from the menu. You will be asked to put your data diskette (ie. your completed Survey Disk) in Drive A and press the ENTER key. The data will be copied. If you have
used more than one Survey Disk to collect your data, you may copy all the diskettes and the data will be combined in one file on your hard disk.
If you discover, at a later date, that you have forgotten to collect
data from one or more respondents, you can still do so and then recopy the Survey Disk onto your hard disk. You will get a warning that you are about to copy a disk that has already been copied but you will be permitted to do so, if that is your intention.
You will probably want to conduct the same or similar surveys (with the same survey name) at regular intervals in order to track your company's progress. You must use new Survey Disks each time you want to collect new data. The data from a maximum of three generations of a survey may be
stored on your hard disk and used for trend analysis. If you try to copy the data from a fourth generation of a survey you will be asked to delete one of the previous generations before you will be allowed to add the data for the newest generation.
6.1 Creating Reports
To see the results of a survey, select the "Survey" option and press ENTER. If you have copied the data from more than one survey onto your hard disk, select the survey whose data you wish to analyze. After the program does the necessary calculations, you will see a screen with several options along the top of the screen. The options that you select on this menu will determine which graph(s), table(s) and/or listing(s) you will see when you select the "Report" option. The menu choices are described in the following
paragraphs.
6.1.1 Type
Select this option if you want to see the data for a single generation of your survey. If you have only copied the data for one generation of the survey, or if you want to see the data for all generations of the survey, there is no need to choose this option. To see the data for one generation of your survey, move the highlight bar to this option and press ENTER. You will be asked to select "Trend" (the default) or "Simple". Select the "Simple" option. You will now select the generation of the survey that you wish
to use. After you have viewed the report(s) for a single generation of the survey, if you wish to see the data for all generations of the survey, go back to this option and select "Trend".
6.1.2 Format
Use this option to choose between graphic, tabular or open-ended question reports.
6.1.3 Detail
If you have selected the graphic or tabular report formats, EASY∙GEN allows you to see your organization's data in the following ways:
1) By topic;
2) By question (for all questions or only the questions
for a chosen topic);
3) By topic or question broken down by the groups within a
demographic category (graphs only); and
4) Percentage of respondents who chose each alternative of a
demographic category (graphs only).
If you wish to see the data by topic, you do not need to select this option since it will occur by default. Otherwise move the highlight bar to the "Detail" option and press ENTER. You will be asked to choose between three
options: Topic, Question and Demographic. You must choose between the "Topic" and "Question" options and you may in addition select the "Demographic" option if you are making a graph and wish to see the data broken down by the groups in a demographic category. Alternatively, you may select the "Demographic Data" option to see graphs of each demographic question showing the percentage of respondents in each demographic category.
When you select the "Question" option you will be asked to select ALL, if you wish to see all of the survey questions or a specific topic, if you wish to see only the questions related to that topic. When you select the
"Demographic" option you will be asked to select the demographic category that you wish to use for breaking down the data. The "Demographic" option is not available if you have selected tabular reports.
If you have selected open-ended question reports, none of these options is available.
6.1.4 Group
This option is used only if you wish to examine the data for a single demographic group (eg. female customers or customers at a particular location).
When you select this option you will be asked to choose a demographic category and then a group within the selected category. For example, you
might choose the demographic category Sex and the Female group in that category. If you did, your reports would only show the data for the women in your organization. If you wanted a smaller sub-group, you could then select a second demographic category and a group within that category. For example,
you could now select the demographic category Location and the Accounting department within that category. Now you would only see the data for female employees in the Accounting Department. You may use as many demographic categories as you wish.
6.1.5 Xgroup
After you see the report(s) for a particular sub-group you may want to see them for a new sub-group. To do so you must first undo the group selections that you made with the "Group" option. Select the "Xgroup" option to do this. Move the highlight bar to any that you wish to unselect and press ENTER. If you unselect all the categories, you will have the entire set of data again.
To illustrate how this works, suppose that you used the "Group" option to select a sub-group of male employees who live within 1-5 miles of your business and now you wanted to see the data for all male employees. You would use the "Xgroup" option and unselect Proximity. On the other hand, if you now wanted the data for all female employees, you would have to use the "Xgroup" option to unselect both Proximity and Sex and then use the "Group" option to select Sex and the Female group within that category.
6.1.6 Omit
After you view a graph, you may want to customize it by removing one or more of the bars on the X-Axis. The "Omit" option will allow you to do this. You will see a list of topics, questions or groups in a demographic category. What you see depends on what selections you made in the "Detail" option. Move the highlight bar to any item that you want removed from the graph(s) and press ENTER.
If you had selected "Demographic Data" under the "Detail" option, you will see a list of the demographic questions when you select "Omit". You may select any that you do not want to see when the Demographic Graphs are displayed.
6.1.7 Include
This option is the reverse of the "Omit" option. Select an item that you want to put back and press ENTER. Selections made with the "Omit/Include" options have no affect on the open-ended question reports.
6.1.8 Report
After you have made all your selections, use the "Report" option to create the bar graph(s), table(s) or open-ended question listings.
6.1.9 Graphic Reports
The graph that you will see will have topics, questions or groups from a demographic category on the X-Axis, depending on the selections that you made. Several graphs may be necessary to cover the data for all topics or
questions. Use the Page Up/Page Down keys to see other graphs in the series.
The Y-Axis of the graphs ranges from a low of Very Negative to a high of Very Positive. In the case of topics, a high score means that the respondents view the organization very positively with respect to the topic. For
example, a high score on the Communications topic means that employees are very happy with the company's communications.
In the case of questions, a high score means that the organization is viewed very positively with respect to the topic but not necessarily as having the trait described by the question. If the question has a negative bias then a high score means that the organization has little of the trait described by the question. For example, a high score for the negatively-biased question "one with poor communications" means that the employees feel that
communications are not poor.
The "x"s on the graphs show the overall means. In cases where the bars themselves are for the total group of respondents the "x"s will be immediately above the bars. The center of the "x" and not the top of the bar gives the score in this situation. If a downward pointing arrow appears above a bar, this indicates that the score for that bar differs significantly (two standard deviations above or below) from the overall mean.
6.1.9.1 Demographic Data Graphs
If you have selected "Demographic Data" under the "Detail" option, you will get a series of graphs, one for each demographic question (except ones which you have chosen to omit or ones which have been used to select a sub-group). Each graph shows the percentage of respondents who chose each alternative of a demographic question. For example, a graph for the demographic question about company location would show the percentage of respondents in each location. The legend at the bottom of the graph would show the actual number of respondents in brackets, in front of the location name. In the case of a trend graph where there is more than one bar per location, the first number refers to the first survey, the second to the second survey, etc.
6.1.10 Printing Graphs
To print the screen, press the F5 key. To print the current screen and all subsequent screens in the report, press the F6 key. To change the print mode between draft and high quality (in the case of a dot matrix printer) press the F10 key. For a laser printer, the printing will be high quality regardless of the print mode setting. On a dot matrix printer draft mode will print four times faster than the high quality mode. Press ESC to return when you are finished.
You may wish to have your graphs (or tables, see 6.1.12 below) sent to a file instead of directly to your printer. To do so, select "Options" from the Main menu and then put a "Y" beside the option "Graphics to file". When you press the F5 or F6 key a file named PRNnnnn.GRF (graph) or PRNnnnn.TBL (table) will be created. "nnnn" represents the file number. To print the file, from the EASYGEN sub-directory, enter "COPY (name of file) PRN". Or to print all the graph and table files that you have created, enter "COPY PRN*.* PRN". This is very useful if you have many graphs and tables to print and you wish to print them all overnight. NOTE: If you leave the analysis part of the program and then return, any new files that are created will replace the old ones.
6.1.11 Tabular Reports
These reports begin with columns containing the date of the survey (if more than one survey is being shown), topic or question number, and the percentage of respondents who chose each of the responses. Column "N" shows the number of respondents who answered the question. Column "Score" shows
the mean score for the group. Column "Mean" gives the mean score for all respondents. "SD" gives the standard deviations. Column "Sig" contains an "S" if the sub-group score differs significantly from the overall mean. The Page
Up and Page Down keys will allow you to see the other screens in the report. Note: If you choose tabular reports, you may make demographic choices in the "Group" option but the selection "Demographics" in the "Detail" option cannot be used. This selection is available, however, when you select graphic reports.
6.1.12 Printing Tables
To print the screen, press the F5 key. The printed report will contain all the information on the screen and possibly additional lines since a printed page can contain more data than the screen. To print the current screen and all subsequent screens in the report, press the F6 key.
You may also send the tables to a file for subsequent printing. See 6.1.10 above. Press ESC to return when you are finished.
6.1.13 Adjusting the Significance Difference Indicator
If you wish to identify groups whose score differs by more or less than two standard deviations, you may select "Options" from the main menu. Enter a number between 0.0 and 9.9 for the Standard Deviation Tolerance. The lower the number, the greater the number of sub-groups that will be identified. Usually a value between 1.0 and 2.0 is best.
6.1.14 Open-Ended Question Listings
You may either select the question to which you would like to know the responses or you may select the option "ALL" to see the responses to all the open-ended questions. The responses are presented one at a time. Press the F3 key to go to the next response for the selected question or the F2 key to go back to the previous response. If you have chosen to see the responses for all questions, you will also be able to use the F7 key to go to the next question or the F6 key to go back to the previous question.
To print the response on the screen, press the F4 key. To print the response on the current screen as well as those on all subsequent screens, press the F5 key. Press ESC to return when you are finished.
6.1.15 Exit
After you have viewed and/or printed all the reports in which you are interested, select the "Exit" option to return to the Survey Analysis menu. From there you can analyze another survey or use the "Exit" option to return to the main menu. It is very important that you always leave the program by using the "Exit" option. If you simply turn off the computer in the middle of the program, your data may be destroyed.
7.0 Other Uses of EASY∙GEN
EASY∙GEN can be used as a general survey tool to create, run and analyze almost any type of survey. Types of surveys that can be generated with EASY∙GEN include market research, customer satisfaction, product and/or service quality, training needs analysis, employee assessment and so on.
For example, you can create a product quality survey by adding appropriate topics and related questions to the Topic and Question databases. The Frequency format could be modified to read "How often do you view Super Spiffy Product as ..." and the other formats could be changed in the same way.
Another example could be to use EASY∙GEN to create a survey to allow managers to find out what their subordinates and colleagues think of them. If you are interested in this application, you may want to consider MSAT - Managerial Self-Assessment Tool which is also available from William
Steinberg Consultants Inc. This product is very similar to EASY∙GEN but it contains questions and topics related to managerial characteristics and other features tailored to this particular application. For more information, you may call Bill Steinberg at (514) 483-6954.
