2. Understand the Basic Structure of Survey Items
2.1 Survey anatomy
You design survey questionnaires to gather specific information you want to learn from your respondents. When creating a survey questionnaire with closed-ended survey items, you need to consider two essential components:
- How you will request information from respondents
- How you will capture their responses
You can request information using a question or a statement (or a phrase). To capture that information, you can use either a closed-ended response scale or an open-ended format. We will refer to each pairing of a question or statement and its corresponding response format as a survey item. This book focuses on designing closed-ended survey items—that is, items that include a response scale—regardless of whether the information is requested through a question or a statement, as illustrated below. More examples of survey items are presented in Table 2.
| When requesting information using a question |
When requesting information using a statement |
|---|---|
| How friendly were the staff?
○ Not friendly at all ○ A bit friendly ○ Somewhat friendly ○ Quite friendly ○ Very friendly |
The staff were friendly.
○ Strongly disagree ○ Somewhat disagree ○ Neutral ○ Somewhat agree ○ Strongly agree |
Table 2 Different Ways to Request and Capture Information
| Capture information |
Requesting information |
Request information |
|---|---|---|
| With a response scale (closed-ended) | Did you have a good experience?
○ Yes ○ No Which one represents your experience? ○ Terrible ○ Mediocre ○ Good enough ○ Best ever |
I had a good experience.
○ Strongly disagree ○ Somewhat disagree ○ Neutral ○ Somewhat agree ○ Strongly agree My experience was: ○ Terrible ○ Mediocre ○ Good enough ○ Best ever |
| Without a response scale (open-ended) | How would you describe your experience?
|
Please describe your overall experience:
|
