20 question types, which one do I use?

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. A jQuery version allows for the answer to be dragged into order preference.

Sliders. Answers can be dragged along a scale to indicate preference.