You can choose from two kinds of survey questions: open and closed. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Surveys are often the best way to gather interesting and relevant data for your topic and audience.
Open-Ended Questions are those that you can’t answer with a yes/no or limited answer. They help you gather ideas and quotable quotes for your paper. They also help you get to know that hottie in the hall better. They may take a little more time, so ask people to take your survey when they’ve got a minute to give you quality responses.
If you ask the person the questions, you may enjoy the interaction (use this with the hottie if you like) but if you print out copies of your survey and pass it out and let them bring it back to you, you won’t have to scribble frantically to get the answers down and you can collect a lot more data in a shorter amount of time.
It’s important that you learn to ask good questions. Try for those that cut straight to the heart of the issue, that ask the questions that will get you the answers you want. Choose your words carefully to avoid any possible ambiguity. And carefully avoid all logical fallacies!
These questions are particularly good for helping you brainstorm on your topic. If you don’t know where you should go next or what else to include in your focus, ask around!
Closed-Ended Questions ask for specific answers. They may be yes/no or ask participants to answer within certain ranges (five to ten years, ten to twenty…strongly agree, agree, don’t care…twenty five to forty percent, forty to eighty percent…).
These questions let you tally the answers and crunch numbers, collecting hard facts and telling you what percentage of a specific population thinks or does what.
Once again, your questions must be precisely worded if you want your results to be valid.