Question Formats
Rating scales: ask respondents to rate something like an idea, concept, individual, program, product, etc. based on a closed ended scale format, usually on a five-point scale. For example, a Likert scale presents respondents with a series of statements rather than questions, and the respondents are asked to which degree they disagree or agree.
Ranking scales: ask respondents to rank a set of ideas or things, etc. For example, a researcher can provide respondents with a list of ice cream flavors, and then ask them to rank these flavors in order of which they like best, with the rank of "one" representing their favorite. These are more difficult to use than rating scales. They will take more time, and they cannot easily be used for phone surveys since they often require visual aids. However, since ranking scales are more difficult, they may actually increase appropriate effort from respondents.
Magnitude estimation scales: ask respondents to provide numeric estimation of answers. For example, respondents might be asked: "Since your least favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla, we'll give it a score of 10. If you like another ice cream 20 times more than vanilla, you'll give it a score of 200, and so on. So, compared to vanilla at a score of ten, how much do you like rocky road?" These scales are obviously very difficult for respondents. However, these scales have been found to help increase variance explanations over ordinal scaling.
Split or unfolding questions: begin by asking respondents a general question, and then follow up with clarifying questions.
Funneling questions: guide respondents through complex issues or concepts by using a series of questions that progressively narrow to a specific question. For example, researchers can start asking general, open-ended questions, and then move to asking specific, closed-ended, forced-choice questions.
Inverted funneling questions: ask respondents a series of questions that move from specific issues to more general issues. For example, researchers can ask respondents specific, closed-ended questions first and then ask more general, open-ended questions. This technique works well when respondents are not expected to be knowledgeable about a content area or when they are not expected to have an articulate opinion regarding an issue.
Factorial questions: use stories or vignettes to study judgment and decision-making processes. For example, a researcher could ask respondents: "You're in a dangerous, rapidly burning building. Do you exit the building immediately or go upstairs to wake up the other inhabitants?" Converse and Presser (1986) warn that little is known about how this survey question technique compares with other techniques.
Avoiding Potential Problems