Types of Questions
The Survey System can handle any type of question. Some other vendors claim their software handles more than a dozen types of questions. But all survey questions really fall into one of the following types, and most other products do not include them all.
Multiple Choice Questions
Multiple choice questions present lists of labeled answer choices.
- Allow up to 999 answer choices per question.
- Allow each person to give up to 99 answers per question.
- Group answers into categories and sub-categories and see net totals.
- Show a text box next to "Other, please specify" and similar choices.
- Use drop-down lists on web surveys.
Numeric Questions
Numeric questions are fill-in-the-blank questions that accept only numbers as answers. Use them where the answers are exact values, such as miles, tons, acres, dollars. You can also use them for ratings and rankings. Web page surveys can use sliders to enter numbers and rank items by dragging them.
- Allow numbers up to 15 digits long.
- Set minimum and maximum values.
- Prevent duplicate answers in ranking questions.
- Rank items by dragging them on web surveys.
- Show a running total of the answers.
- Use sliders on web surveys.
- Group up to 500 sub-questions for data collection and reports.
- Show means, totals, standard deviations, standard errors, t-tests, etc.
Grid (Matrix) Questions
Grid questions present a matrix of sub-questions and answer choices. Use them for ratings, agreement scales, semantic differentials and other situations. Web page surveys can also present grids of numeric fill-in-the-blank questions and grids of drop-down lists.
Text Answer Questions
Collect comments and other text answers.
- Accept text answers of any length.
- Classify answers based on their content.
- Produce text reports classified by demographics and/or content.
- Produce tables showing how many times concepts were mentioned.
- Perform word frequency counts and basic content analysis.
Specialized Web Survey Question Types
Web surveys allow kinds of visual data collection that are not suitable for telephone or paper surveys.
- Use sliders to collect numeric answers.
- Let people rank items by dragging them into their preferred order.
- Create heat maps by recording were people click on an image.
- Record which words or phrases in a paragraph attract the most attention.
Voice Captured Questions
Record peoples’ answers in their own voices via telephone, laptop or mobile. Play the answers back for coding and for presentations which show the characteristics of the people making each comment.
