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Survey Features

Multiple Choice Question

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Making a decision, whether it’s about choosing what to wear or an ice cream flavor, might be the most challenging thing in life.

On the other hand, a list of possibilities can help make such judgments easier. That’s what multiple-choice questions are for!

A well-framed question provides responders with two or more answer possibilities. They are more convenient, take less time to answer, and may greatly simplify data analysis.

What is a multiple choice question?

Being the most popular question type in surveys, these questions enable respondents to choose answers from a predefined list of options. Considered an intuitive question type, multiple choice questions come with mutually exclusive options to produce data that can be easily analyzed. 

It also ensures a brilliant survey-taking experience for the respondents as there are fixed answer choices. The multiple-choice questions can be categorized into single select and multiple select answers. The structure of a multiple-choice question consists of a stem (which is the introductory question) and a set of options with key (correct answer) and distractors (incorrect answers).

Example of Multiple Choice Question

A grocery store wants to survey to understand the shopping behavior of its customers. Here’s how a multiple choice question can be used in this case: 

When to use multiple choice questions?

These questions may significantly influence your research by allowing you to assess the consumers’ opinions and preferences quickly. They are excellent for the following:

  • Questions are posed to determine what sticks out the most among users or customers.
  • Determining consumer preference for key designs or aspects of your product
  • When you need to ask a specific inquiry to analyze the material.

While a single select multiple choice question is usually implemented in dichotomous surveys (with yes/no answer options), election polls, and online assessment tests (conducted by schools and universities), multiple select multiple-choice questions are used in healthcare surveys (to understand patients’ concerns) and market research surveys (to uncover market trends). 

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What are the types of multiple choice questions?

As we have learned what MCQs are, let’s dive into the top 10 types of MCQs.

1. Single select multiple choice questions

Single-choice questions require a respondent to choose only one answer from a prepared set of replies with at least two or more possibilities. They are one of the most used question types and are useful in finding a user’s primary preference among a collection of options. 

They are closed-ended questions that assist respondents in selecting from choices they may not have considered previously. They are quite simple to react to, and respondents can use mobile devices such as mobile phones, Ipads, tablets, and similar to respond.

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

2. Multi-select multiple choice questions

Multiple choice questions are comparable to multi-select multiple choice questions. However, there is one distinction in this question type: these questions can have more than one valid answer. 

As a survey developer, you may include as many options as possible. The options in multi-select questions are permuted each time they appear. However, in non-permuting multiple-choice questions, the selection order is fixed.

3. Text slider multiple choice question

A text slider multiple choice question is an excellent alternative to open-ended questions since it allows respondents to answer by moving a slider. They use the slider bar to choose their preferred selections, making it another useful graphical rating question type.

This question type saves the respondent significant time because they do not have to manually enter any answer.

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4. Numeric slider multiple choice question

In this question style, like the text slider multiple choice question, the respondent can answer the question by moving the slide across the range of numbers. This rating scale is useful in quantifying attitudes and opinions and converting those into statistical data.

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

5. Thumbs Up/Down multiple choice question

To grasp the respondents’ opinions, ask a binary rating question and use the thumbs up or thumbs down option. This option effectively contains a thumbs up/thumbs down a picture that helps identify the rating choice. It allows responders to choose between likes and dislikes quickly.  

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

6. Matrix table multiple choice question

You can ask many questions or sections of a single topic using a matrix table question. For example, you can solicit comments on your website’s design, user interface, picture quality, browsing experience, product descriptions, payment choices, and so on.

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

7. Dropdown menu multiple choice questions

Dropdown MCQs let responders select an answer from a selection of options shown in a dropdown menu. Depending on the use case, the survey creator can design the option to allow respondents to select one or more alternatives.

This question is generally used when respondents must choose from a set of possibilities.

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

8. Star rating multiple choice questions

The respondent can score a question or rank objects using stars. More stars imply a higher rating and vice versa. The total of the stars for each option yields an aggregate answer. 

These questions are useful when you want to determine whether the respondents like the product or service. These are popularly used question types that you can see in a review or on shopping websites/apps. 

9. Rank order multiple choice question

The Rank Order question type allows respondents to rank a group of objects against one another. Multiple choice questions based on rank order scaling allow a specific group of brands or items to be rated based on a given trait or characteristic.

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10. Image/picture-based multiple choice question

A picture choice question, another visual variant of multiple choice questions, enables the representation of the response possibilities. The responders can then evaluate and pick their preferred option. This survey question style is useful for making your surveys or forms appear more dynamic and interesting overall.

Multiple Choice Question multiple choice question

Tips to write multiple choice questions

Here are 3 fantastic tips for the questions:

  1. Remember to mention the “other” option: When creating multiple choice questions, it is best to include the “other” option so that respondents can voice their thoughts if they don’t agree with the response possibilities provided by the survey author.
  2. Provide distinct clear answer alternatives: It is critical to provide unique clear answer options to the question that is being asked. If all of the responses blend and there is no clarity, responders will be confused and unable to select the most relevant replies from the possibilities.
  3. Don’t fill the questionnaire with yes/no questions: If only direct questions are posed, respondents will have few alternatives for responding. Always include response options that provide respondents with a variety of possibilities to pick from.

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What are the advantages of using a Multiple Choice Question?

Easy to respond: Answering a multiple-choice question is very quick compared to an open-ended one. As respondents don’t have to evaluate a question and think about writing a relevant answer, this question type helps to reduce the response time drastically.  

Better Analysis: Using multiple-choice questions in your survey streamlines the process of data analysis and report generation. Effective survey software makes it easy to filter out responses and evaluate the answer options selected by the respondents.

Numerous Options to Choose: By offering respondents multiple answer options to choose from, this question type helps them pick the right option that resonates with their ideas. It also helps the respondents to understand the question in a more intrinsic way. 

Actionable Insights: Using multi-choice questions empowers researchers to delve deeper into the respondents’ opinions, preferences, and choices. Based on the answer options that respondents select, it gets easy to understand their likes/dislikes. These insights play a critical role in developing a product or service strategy.

Conclusion

For good reason, multiple choice questions constitute the majority of survey questions. They are adjustable and versatile, allowing you to construct surveys that respondents find intuitively obvious and easy to browse. Simultaneously, multiple-choice datasets are arranged in ways that allow for quick, efficient analysis and reporting.

Voxco can assist you in learning how to use multiple-choice questions to maximize the value of your survey research data.

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