This page is still under construction.
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 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 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.
A question item is a representation of a single question in a questionnaire (made up of the question literal, label, response domain and optional instruction).
A question grid is a matrix of questions with overarching question text that all share the same possible answers.
When to use a Question Item
Question Items are the default choice when entering a question most of the time. They must always include at least one response domain and question literal that should be able to stand alone contextually. Sometimes nearby text has to be concatentated on to inadequate question text, to display complete context. For example, the sentence 'Smoking:' on its own would not be enough for a complete question text, but 'Tell us about your habits: Smoking:' would be. Example 1 below shows a clear example of this, with 'how often did you see him in hospital' being concatenated on to '1st admission' to form a complete question text.
However, if text that would provide clarity/context to a question item is contained entirely within a previous question, such as '1. Do you smoke? 2. How many a day?' these have to be documented as two separate question items, to maintain faithfulness to the original questionnaire (Principle 1).
When to use a Question Grid
In general, individual questions are preferable to question grids when documenting metadata, due to the simplicity of the former. 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:
- There are 3 or more questions, and the length of the question plus the longest sub-question is 15 words or more
- There are 2 questions, and the length of the question plus the longest sub-question is 25 words or more.
Note that if the sub-questions have varying response domains, or multiple text boxes are required, it is often best practice to use multiple question items, regardless of how many sub-questions/statements there are or how long the question items will be. However, some of these situations can be solved with using break-off techniques in Question Grids.
Example 1 Questionnaire: My Teenage Son 2004 (ALSPAC) question A4. d
This example shows a set of related questions displayed as separate question items.
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):
Example 2 Questionnaire: My Teenage Son 2004 (ALSPAC) question H17. a-d
This example shows a set of related questions displayed entered as a question grid.
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):