Surveys 101, Part 2 : Which type of question should I use?

mycommunitynet
Feb 11, 2015
3 min read

When writing any survey, managing how you ask questions is as important as what you ask in them, and can make all the difference to the results you achieve. MyCommunity gives you the choice of five types of question when building your project – single and multi choice, comment and text box and matrix. Understanding when to use each type will help you build consultation materials which avoids leading respondents to a predetermined conclusion while still obtaining useful, accurate data. So how do you do it? Part 2 of our Surveys 101 Guide is dedicated to picking the right type of question for the job. Let's get started.

Single Choice

Single choice questions are best used when you need respondents to make a clear choice from a set of options (“yes/no/don’t know”) or provide a specific value (“1-2 years/3-4 years”...).

Be sure to include all possible options, and a box for ‘not applicable’ or ‘other’ where appropriate.

Multi Choice

Multi choice questions are used where a respondent may choose more than one option (“Which of the following cereals have you bought in the past six months?”). Be sure to provide all appropriate answers and an ‘other ‘option for respondents that don’t fit into your general categories. If most people are selecting the ‘other’ option, you may have forgotten a relevant category and are therefore missing out on demographic information that could be useful for your results. Always research your options thoroughly before your project goes live by proofreading your survey with friends or colleagues.

Comment Boxes

Comment boxes allow you to obtain descriptive feedback about a chosen topic. The data provided will be qualitative (word-based); if you’re looking for respondents to give a number (“How many employees work at your business?”), use a single choice option instead. This will make your data easier to analyse.Comment boxes can take a long time for respondents to fill out. If you have a long survey, numerous comment boxes might deter people from answering in the first place. Use them sparingly!

Text Boxes

Text questions allow users to type a response up to 64 characters. They’re best used when you need a descriptive response, but not one as long as a comment box would offer. Seeking job titles or place names would be a good use of a text question.As with comment questions, do bear in mind that text responses will be difficult to analyse quantitatively (ie., with numbers). If you’re looking for a numerical response to your question (how many people answering your survey work in a particular sector, for example), a single choice selection question will provide more useful data.

Matrix

Matrix questions are for assessing opinion along a quantifiable scale – from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”, for example. Be sure to cover all types of opinion by using a scale that ranges from a strong negative (“almost never”) to a strong positive (“almost always”). Providing an even number of options will force people to have an opinion on the topic, whereas an odd number will allow people to express no opinion by selecting a mid-point (eg. “neither agree nor disagree”). These middle options can be useful in themselves. A question might not apply to certain respondents of your survey, so adding a “don’t know” option or similar can be a good idea to prevent survey dropout. Ready to go? Head to MyCommunity.net to set up your first free survey. If you've got a question about questions or need support when setting up your MyCommunity survey, visit our support pages or get in touch. Until then, stay tuned for part 3 of our survey guide – "Common survey mistakes and how not to make them".