Questions

Questions in Archivist is where the question text is entered and brought together with the relevant Response Domains.They can hold Question Items or Question Grids. The response domains including the Code Lists must be created before you can build these, hence why this is not the first step in the process. Interviewer Instructions are attached to the question during the creation of the questions.

Before creating a question, you will need to consider whether the question is a Question Item or a Question Grid. It is not always easy to identify what is one question item, multiple question items or a sequence with multiple question items.

Choosing when to use a grid:

In general, individual questions are slightly preferable to grids when documenting metadata, due to the simplicity of the former. Grids become the tool of choice when we are faced with series of repeating questions such as a food list (see Questionnaire Initial (SWS) sws_1_bio, qc_s3_1_3-16 for an example of a more extensive food list.)

When choosing whether to use a grid or separate questions:

• If there are 3 or more questions, and the length of the question plus the longest answer is 15 words or more, then it should be made into a grid. If not, these are separate questions.
• If there are 2 questions, and the length of the question plus the longest answer is 25 words or more, then it should be made into a grid. If not, these are separate questions.

Example 1 shows a set of related questions displayed as separate question constructs.

Questionnaire: My Teenage Son 2004 (ALSPAC) question A4. d

Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):

Example 2 shows a set of related questions displayed as a grid.

Questionnaire: My Teenage Son 2004 (ALSPAC) question H17. a-d

Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):