Data Acquisition: Closed-Ended Format questionnaire response

Interviewer and coder bias are removed, because the interviewer is simply checking a box, turning a category, recording a number or key punching. Reading response alternatives may take a person's memory and provide a more realistic. Furthermore, since the possibility of exposing on a subject is not given to a respondent, there is no inclination towards the articulated. Finally, coding and data acquisition process is greatly simplified.

There is a difference between a pre-coded open-ended question and a close-ended question. An open question allows the respondent to respond in a freewheeling format. The interviewer simply checks the points on the pre-recorded responses as they are given. Survey is used, but a list is never read. If you want an answer, since it is not pre-registered, it is written verbatim in the column 'others'. In contrast, the closed-ended question requires alternatives to be read or shown to the defendant.

Traditionally, the data acquisition process has separated the two-item response option among the many-element type. Two dichotomous choice question is called and the many-element type is often called multiple-choice or multi-chotomous. With the dichotomous closed-ended question, the response categories are sometimes implicit. For example, as you can answer the following question: "Did you buy gasoline for your car last week?" Obviously, the implicit options are "Yes" or "No", regardless of whether the defendant can say, "I rented a car last week and filled for me. Make that count?" applications would still be classified as a dichotomous response closed.

The simplest form of data acquisition is a closed-ended or dichotomous choice question. They are easy to handle and usually evoke a rapid response. For example, limiting the answers to a simple "Yes" or "No", "Agree" or "I agree" or "greater than" or "minus". Many times a neutral or "no opinion / don 't know" option is added to the dichotomous questions to take care of these situations. Sometimes the interviewer write "DK" for "Do not know" or "NR" for "No Answer" if this option is not neutral from the questionnaire data acquisition.

Dichotomous questions are prone to a large amount of measurement error. Because the alternatives are polarized, the wide range of choices between the poles is omitted. Thus, the wording of the question is very critical to obtain accurate answers. The questions raised in a positive form could lead to opposite responses from those expressed in a negative format. In applications that require a "greater than" or "Less" answer, the answer may vary. These problems can be solved using a technique electoral split. Half of the questionnaires are formulated with more than before listed and the other half with less than before. This procedure help to reduce the bias potential.

Each type of closed-ended question only has disadvantages. For dichotomous data acquisition form, the answers often fail to communicate any intensity of feeling by the defendant. In some cases, the question of intensity does not apply, as in the example above for the purchase of gasoline, but we have cases in which the respondent feels very strongly about an issue, but the intensity is lost in the dichotomous data acquisition module. The response closed, the question has two additional disadvantages. First, the researcher must spend time collecting the list of possible answers, in the second place the range of possible responses. If the list is too long, respondents may become confused or disinterested ....