A closed-ended question generates a limited set of responses that can be coded easily in a database with some number or symbol that represents a response. Multiple-choice, ordinal, interval, and ratio questions generate closed-ended responses.
Professional Enterprise ReportR DistributR This guide will teach you:
1. Closed-ended question examples
- Would you like vanilla ice cream?
- Where did you go to college?
- What is your best quality?
- Do you enjoy your car?
- Does your brother have the same interests as you?
- Do you like animals?
- When is your birthday?
Be careful not to turn your closed-ended inquiries into a leading question.
2. Advantages
- It is easier and quicker for respondents to answer
- The answers of different respondents are easier to compare
- Answers are easier to code and statistically analyze
- The response choices can clarify the inquiry meaning for respondents
- Respondents are more likely to answer about sensitive topics
- There are fewer irrelevant or confusing answers
- Less articulate or less literate respondents are not at a disadvantage
- Replication is easier
3. Disadvantages
- They can suggest ideas that the respondent would not otherwise have
- Respondents with no opinion or no knowledge can answer any way
- Respondents can be frustrated because their desired answer is not a choice
- It is confusing if many response choices are offered
- Misinterpretation of an inquiry can go unnoticed
- Distinctions between respondent answers may be blurred
- Clerical mistakes or marking the wrong response is possible
- They force respondents to give simplistic responses to complex issues
- They force people to make choices they would not make in the real world
What's next?
- Ranking question: This allows survey respondents to compare different items to each other by placing them in order of how they score (or rank) at a specific aspect, such as design, cost, functionality, importance. Often with the most important or preferred item ranked first or on top of the list.
- Smiley rating question: a rating question, most often used to get a clear view of how someone likes your product, service, or business. The smiley question is a 5-point rating scale intended to represent a range of sentiments from negative to neutral to positive, making smiley ratings most useful when measuring emotions or feelings.
- Survey bias means that the inquiry is phrased or formatted in a way that leads people to choose a certain answer instead of another. The same applies if your inquiries are hard to understand, making it difficult for customers to answer honestly.