Guide to using Question Types
Open-ended text questions. Use to generate a more detailed
answer or to gather information that respondents feel has not been covered
in the closed-ended questions. Use sparingly since high in respondent burden,
administrative burden, and analytical burden.
Multiple choice questions. Use for demographic questions
and other issues where the respondent is to select among a set of response
choices, either selecting the best option or selecting all that apply.
Ordinal scale questions. The theme in ordinal questions
is that the response options are on some ordered continuum. Forced ranking
questions are prone to respondent error. Another type of ordinal question
is when the respondent is ask to choose the answer among an ordered set,
such as when Goldilocks was asked about the temperature of the porridge:
too cold, just right, or too hot.
Interval scale questions. These are the most common type
of survey question. You have probably seen the following scales used: satisfaction,
likelihood, strength of agreement, and frequency. But the survey questionnaire
designer can create a scale to match the dimension she wishes to measure.
As mentioned, the critical differentiator between ordinal and interval scale
questions is that equal intervals exist between each adjoining pair of response
options. Many researchers believe that the typical 1-to-5 or 1-to-10 scalar
questions are not truly interval but are in fact ordinal.
Ranking questions. These questions allow for the ranking of answers in order of preference
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