Writing Effective Surveys - Multiple Choice
If you’re new here, you probably missed my original post on scaling surveys. If you have any interest in surveying people, read this.
So we have the basics down - now what is multiple choice? Assuming you spent a day in grade school, you should know what multiple choice is… a question with several options as potential answers - for example:
What color is this text?
A. Black
B. Brown
C. Blue
D. Walrus
The correct answer, of course, would be D. So how the hell could I screw up some dumb multiple choice question?
Here’s a fun example…
When I first went to college, I had to fill out a survey. The school wanted to know (anonymously) how many students were alcoholics. The first question was:
How often do you binge drink per week?
A. 0-2 days
B. 2-4 days
C. 4-5 days
D. 5-7 days
Well now that I know that I have a comfort zone of 2 days and my school stays a respectable institution… I’ll drink to that question. I selected A, but then I thought… what if someone drinks 4 days per week? What would that person select… option B or option C?
How do we fix this? Definitive answers. Never overlap with numbers… it confuses people.
I also took a survey from a Masters student about transportation. The questions went on about riding bicycles and never bothered to ask if I even used one.
When you are designing your potential answers, make sure anyone can answer it. If you ask:
What mode of transportation do you use to go to class?
A. Car
B. Bicycle
C. Train
D. Fighter Jet
What if I took the bus? Sometimes you want specific statistics so bad, you forget about the people you aren’t interested in… the people who circle “None of the above.”
Tags: choice_question, definitive_answers, multiple_choice, select_option, surveysRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Surveying
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