Questions

“Questions” in Archivist is where the question text is entered and brought together with the relevant Response Domains. Interviewer Instructions can also be added if there are any. 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 manual entry process.

Before creating a question, you will need to consider whether the question is a question item or a question grid. A Question Item is a representation of a single question in a questionnaire. A Question Grid is a matrix of questions with overarching question text that all share the same possible answers. It is not always easy to identify what is one question item, multiple question items, or a sequence with multiple question items.

When to use a Question Item

Question items are typically the default choice when entering a question. They must always include at least one response domain and a question literal that should be able to stand alone contextually. Sometimes nearby text has to be concatentated to question text to display complete context (see Question Items Example 4 for more information).

However, if text that would provide clarity or 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 questions, 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 questionnaire metadata. Therefore, when a single-column grid is used in a questionnaire, the questions in the grid are entered as individual question. If the grid has multiple multi-columns, it is entered as a question 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 or statements there are or how long the question items will be. The exception to this is 'breaking off' questions with a mixed response (usually a 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 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. 

Questionnaire layout:

Open

Archivist view (alspac_04_mtsd):

Open