...
Questions in Archivist is where the question text is entered and brought together with the relevant Response Domains. They can be Question Items or Question Grids. The response Response domain(s) and/or Code List(s) must be created before you can build a question, hence why this is not the first step in the process. Interviewer Instructions are also created during this process.
...
In general, individual questions are preferable to question grids when documenting questionnaire metadata. Question grids become the tool of choice when we are faced with a series of repeating questions such as a food list. A question grid is advantageous to use when:
...
Therefore, when a grid is used in a questionnaire, the questions in the grid are entered as individual question items instead of question grids, unless it is a multi-column grid.
Note that if the sub-questions have varying response domains (for example the code list is not the same across the sub-questions) then multiple question items must be used. This is regardless of how many sub-questions/statements there are or how long the question items will be. The exception to this is 'breaking off' questions with a mixed response (usually code list plus a text answer) from a group of sub-questions. The sub-questions without a mixed response can be input as a question grid. The mixed response sub-questions are added as separate questions below the grid. See break-off questions for more details.
Example 1 Questionnaire: ALSPAC My Teenage Son
This example shows a set of related questions displayed as separate question items. Question A4(d) appears at first glance to be one question, but is actually three sub-questions. The overarching text 'How often did you see him while he was in hospital?' is common to all three of these questions, and so is concatenated on to each mention of 'admission'. This particular example also shows a situation that the enterer may assume is to be recorded using a question grid at first, due to the layout. However, it would only be appropriate to use a grid if there was more lengthy question text - 15 words or more.
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):
Example 2 shows a set of related questions displayed entered as a question grid.
...
Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):
