Asking Survey Questions

Surveys help you gather information about people’s behavior and attitudes about various topics. Here are tips for writing effective survey questions.

1. Analyze your communication situation.

2. Choose the right question types.

• Open-ended questions allow responders to offer valuable information and opinions with no restrictions. However, they take time to complete, and the answers can be difficult to analyze.

  Example: Describe your music-listening habits.

• Closed-ended questions give responders a choice of answers (yes/no, true/false). While these questions produce only quick, simple answers, they are easily tallied. There are five types of closed-ended questions you can use:
  • ▶ Multiple-choice questions ask responders to choose the best answer.

    On which medium do you most often listen to music?

    a) Internet radio b) MP3 c) FM radio

  • ▶ Categorical questions are used to classify participants according to age, gender, ethnicity, or other categories.

    Select your age range.

    a) < 20 b) 20–29 c) 30–39 d) 40–49 e) 50–59 f) 60+

  • ▶ Likert scale questions provide choices on a scale.

    On a scale of 1 to 5, how important is it that musicians are compensated for the music you listen to? (choose one)

    (Unimportant) 1 2 3 4 5 (Very important)

  • ▶ Ordinal questions ask responders to rank a list of choices.

    Rank the following activities from 1 (most likely) to 3 (least likely) according to the likelihood that you would listen to music while doing them. Write your ranking in the spaces provided.

    Doing schoolwork ___ Exercising ___ Working ___

  • ▶ Numerical questions ask responders to choose a certain number.

    How many hours a day do you listen to music?

    a) Less than 1 b) 1–2 c) More than 2

3. Provide choices that are . . .

• Mutually exclusive (choices don’t overlap)
• Collectively exhaustive (choices cover all possible alternatives)
• Balanced (an equal number of favorable and unfavorable choices)