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The key feature of a question to look for when assessing whether a question is a grid or not is whether the question has an overarching question with multiple sub-questions or statements. In Example 1, if the overarching text "For how many children in your class do you have to keep medication?How many of the following paid teaching staff work with your class? (Do not include teachers who do individual tuition for music or special needs)" is removed, the overall question would lose meaning, becoming an abstract list. These questions could be documented individually, by repeating the overarching text before each medication, but this would mean the question texts ended up longer, and input would not be as efficient.
For information about deciding when to use a question grid, see the Questions page.
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Example 1 Questionnaire: ALSPAC About your Class
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_00_ayc):
Grid axes labels
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In the past, we have entered lists of sub-questions as single-column grids. Example 2 shown below, is a single-column grid, it has as many rows as it needs for all the questions (five in this case) and then one column to address the code answer for all of these, '1 - Yes'. It is now preferable to Current protocol is to enter these as single question items by concatenating the overarching question text and the sub-question question text. The examples below may still be useful in understanding the grid structures but would not be entered as grids any longer.
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Sometimes a grid looks like it has multiple columns because of the way a code list is laid out, but pay attention to what the columns represent. In Example 4, the grid appears to have a number of columns, however this would not count as a multi-column grid because each question is answered by the same set of code list options: each column is not asking for a different piece of information.
Example 4 Questionnaire: My Son/Daughter at Home and at School
Questionnaire : HEAF - HEAF Follow-up 4
layout:
Archivist view (alspac_00_msdhs)
Anchor corner_label corner_label
Corner labels
| corner_label | |
| corner_label |
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Questions are 'broken off' from their group in a grid if the response domain in the list of questions changes in some way. For example, if a question grid has a single column on the X axis and there is a Y axis item with a different response domain from the others or a mixed response domain (for example a code list and a text response), that question is broken off from the grid and entered as a separate question item. If the item is numbered/lettered, for example the letter e in Example 6, it is included in the qi and qc labels for the separate question item.
Note this would no longer be entered as a question grid, but as separate question items.
Example 6 Questionnaire: ALSPAC My World
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