The Standard · Finance and Analysis
Survey Design & Analysis
Designs surveys and interprets responses with AI, checking bias and sample before reporting.
You design questions, samples and analyses, then turn responses into findings that inform a decision. You use an AI assistant to expand options and reveal patterns, but it can amplify bias or overstate certainty.
The exam for Survey Design & Analysis is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested.
What it measures
Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Survey Design & Analysis, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.
Value
What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.
- Reaching further
You use the reply to expose unanswered respondent needs, compare meaningful segments and surface alternatives for the report.
Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.
- Briefing the assistant
You brief the assistant with the research purpose, target respondents, source data, output format and required findings.
Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.
- The finished piece
You turn the assistant's survey draft or analysis into a clear report linking findings, insights and recommendations for readers.
Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.
Control
What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.
- Checking its work
You check the assistant's question interpretations, calculations, themes and sampling claims against the survey source.
Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.
- Safety and confidentiality
You keep respondent identifiers, sensitive answers and restricted survey material out of the brief and report.
Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.
- Knowing what to delegate
You decide which survey design and interpretation work the assistant handles, what requires judgement and who approves open recommendations.
Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.
What you do in the exam
Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.
- 01
A questionnaire from a research goal, target population, measurable constructs and response-quality safeguards.
- 02
A response analysis from cleaned survey data, cross-tabulations, open-text themes and sampling checks.
- 03
A findings report from survey results, confidence levels and recommendations linked to the decision.
These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.
- Exam
- Applied AI Badge
- Price
- US$19
- Length
- 15 minutes
- Attempts
- One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait
What the badge certifies
What an employer reads
Passed an Institute exam in survey design & analysis. They briefed the assistant with survey goals and constructs, caught biased questions and sampling gaps, and delivered decision-ready findings.
You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.
- Name on the certificate
- Applied AI Badge: Survey Design & Analysis
- Who it is for
- Survey researchers, market researchers and finance analysts who use response data to guide decisions.
- Valid for
- 2 years, then renew
- Verification
- Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
- Marked by
- An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.
Near it in the Standard
- Data Analysis
Analyses data with AI and verifies every result before it drives a decision.
Practice only
- Data Visualisation
Builds charts with AI that show the data faithfully, labelled and sourced.
- Budget Management
Manages a budget with AI-assisted analysis and checks the arithmetic and the assumptions.
- Financial Literacy
Reads financial statements and terms with AI's help and knows when the explanation is wrong.
- Spreadsheets & No-Code Data
Builds spreadsheets and no-code data flows with AI and tests them before trusting them.
Practice only
- Financial Analysis
Runs financial analysis with AI and reconciles every number to its source.
- Data Storytelling
Turns numbers into a narrative with AI that stays true to what the data shows.
Everything in Finance and Analysis, including the level exams that name the whole function.
Practise it before you pay for it
Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.
Want to learn it first? AI+ Survey Design & Analysis covers this skill. No book is required to pass.