Survey Questions

  1. Use comment box for numerical questions. Using bracket format is inferior.

    <aside> <img src="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" alt="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" width="40px" /> How many times did you use the toilet yesterday? Answer: [fill in numbers only] times.

    </aside>

    <aside> <img src="/icons/thumbs-down_red.svg" alt="/icons/thumbs-down_red.svg" width="40px" /> How many times did you use the toilet yesterday? Options: (1) Less than 1 time (2) 1-3 times (3) 4-6 times (4) 7 times or more

    </aside>

    Source: Krosnick J.A. & Presser S. (2010), page 266.

  2. When testing the presence or absence of "knowledge," open-ended questions must clearly discourage respondents from answering "I don't know"; closed-ended questions must clearly discourage guessing.

    <aside> <img src="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" alt="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" width="40px" /> Q: Do you know what an SSD is? Please fill in as much as you know, and try not to answer "I don't know" if possible. A: [open-ended]

    </aside>

    <aside> <img src="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" alt="/icons/thumbs-up_green.svg" width="40px" /> Q: Do you know what an SSD is? Please try not to guess. A: (1) Bank (2) Hard disk (3) TV brand (4) Mental illness (5) I don't know

    </aside>

    Source: Krosnick J.A. & Presser S. (2010), page 267-268.

  3. Generally speaking, a 7-point scale is the best. Possibly because it matches a person’s mental scale best and leads to a greater chance of statistical significance. There is no strict rules for the number of points of a scale. The questionnaire designer could use any types of scales that suits best for their situation. However, 2-3-4-5-point scales are often unable to represent the respondents’ actual attitudes, causing their answers to flip-flop between tests and harm the reliability of the questionnaires. When the scale exceeds 7 points, the differences between each point become increasingly difficult to distinguish, which also harms the reliability of the scale. In short, there is no right or wrong number of options, but 7 points is the most widely applicable method.

Reference