Articles

Customer Surveys Question Structure: by Michael Koscec - Entec Corporation - Thursday, December 04 2008

Submitted by Contact101 on Fri, 2004-10-22 17:56.

The first step in writing a good survey question is to identify exactly what kind of information you want respondents to provide. Virtually all questions that might be asked in a survey fit into one of 4 categories: open-ended, closed-ended with ordered choices, close ended with unordered choices and partially closed-ended. Each category tends to be better suited for obtaining certain types of information than others. Let’s look at each one closely. 

Open-ended Questions

Open-ended questions do not provide choices from which to select an answer. Instead respondents must formulate an answer in their own words. This type of question takes the least amount of effort to write, but there are drawbacks that should be considered.

First, open-ended questions can be very demanding for respondents. You are asking them to take a considerable amount of time to formulate answer. Second, open-ended questions rarely provide accurate measurements or consistent, comparable information across the whole sample, therefore, making it hard to quantify. The third drawback is that the open-ended questions require an enormous amount of time to code the results in report form.

It’s not to say you never want to use Open-end questions, just be aware of the additional work that will need to be done to analyze the results.

Closed-ended with Ordered Choices

Unlike open-ended questions, closed-ended questions with ordered answer choices tend to be quite specific. They are less demanding for the respondent and much easier to code and analyze than open-ended questions.

Close-ended with Unordered Response Choices

Closed-ended questions with unordered responses are multiple choice answers. Respondents are asked to choose from among discrete, unordered categories. They must evaluate each choice and select the one that best reflects their situation or rank them in order of importance.

Typically the unordered format is used when your knowledge of the subject allows you to list useful answer choices. Closed-ended question with unordered response choices are usually more difficult than those with ordered choices. With ordered choices, respondents are asked to think only about where they fit with in a range (from strongly agree to strongly disagree). With unordered choices, the respondent has to process more information.

The key to using the unordered format is that you as the surveyor must have an intimate knowledge of the subject matter in order to create the best choices.

Partially Closed-end Questions

Partially close-ended questions provide a compromise between the open- and closed-end questions. Respondents are provided with answer choices and also an option of creating their own responses. It should be noted that the answer choices are typically unordered. This type of question has the advantage of not forcing respondents into predefined boxes that don’t fit their situation and occasionally generates new information.

Each of the four question structures has merits and is better suited, depending on the situation, to provide particular information. Knowledge of the four alternatives is useful in helping surveyors think through what they are really trying to find out.