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titleKey Considerations
  • Only use for multi-column grids
    Questions laid out as a table in a questionnaire are not necessarily entered as grids.
  • For questions to be input as a grid, there must be overarching text that can be input as the grid literal.
  • Questions laid out as a table in a questionnaire are not necessarily entered as grids.
  • All questions (Y axis) in the grid must have the same response(s) (X axis). In some cases, questions with different responses may be broken off from the grid and input as a separate question.
  • When a group of repeated questions has overarching text containing important information (who, when and where) about the loop, then a grid is used to more strongly connect the questions to the defining overarching text.

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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:

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Archivist view (alspac_00_ayc):

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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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Example 3 shows a grid with multiple columns, headed by three categories in its X axis code list. The three categories have response domains attached to them, addressing the three parts of each question section. A mixture of two numeric answers and one text answer (Age, Generic Text, How Many).

Example 3 Questionnaire: ALSPAC My Son/Daughter's Health

Questionnaire layout:

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Archivist Build / Code Lists:

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Archivist view (alspac_00_msdh):

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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

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4 Questionnaire:

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 My Son/Daughter

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at Home and at School


Questionnaire layout:

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Archivist Build / Code Lists:

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Archivist view (alspac_00_msdhmsdhs):

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Example 4 Questionnaire: HEAF - HEAF Follow-up 4

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Anchor
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Corner labels

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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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For a group of questions to be input as a grid, there must be overarching text to add as the grid literal. When this text is missing, a loop can be used to input the repeating questions (see Example 2 on Loops)

Example 8 Questionnaire: NCDS Age 23 Cohort Member Interview

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