Response Styles of Structured Questions in Business Research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51983/arss-2017.6.2.1371Keywords:
Dichotomous question, Multiple choice question, Rank order question, Rating scale question, Interval scale questions and Ratio scale questionAbstract
In a scientific research work, a questionnaire is an important tool for collection of data from potential respondents. The most important part of a questionnaire is a question. The Questions are generally classified into two categories: Open ended questions and closed ended question. Open ended questions are called free response questions or unstructured questions and closed ended questions are called fixed response questions or structured questions. The main objective of this paper was to explore the response styles of structured questions. There is a range of measurement scales and response styles that are used during the development of a questionnaire. Different types of response styles of questions under nominal scale, ordinal scale, interval scale and ratio scales were discussed. Generally two types of nominal questions were found in different research tools i.e. dichotomous and multiple choice questions. Three types of ordinal questions: rank order question, rating scale question and constant cum question were discussed. Questions related to Interval scales and ration scales were also discussed. The fill in the blanks type response style was found in ratio scale questions. When developing a new research tool, it is important to clear which scale and response style to be used.
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