Survey Question Examples
1. The Well-Written Question
"On a scale of 1 to 5, how often do you find it difficult to pronounce English words ending in 'stop' consonants (such ...
Survey Question Examples
1. The Well-Written Question
"On a scale of 1 to 5, how often do you find it difficult to pronounce English words ending in 'stop' consonants (such as /p/, /t/, or /k/)?
(1) Never
(2) Rarely
(3) Sometimes
(4) Often
(5) Always"
2. The Poorly Constructed Question
"Do you think English final consonants are hard to learn and that teachers should spend more time using AI tools to fix them?"
Analysis
Why Question 1 is Good:
Specificity: It focuses on a precise linguistic category (stop consonants) rather than "English" in general.
Unambiguous Scale: It uses a standard Likert scale with clear labels, making the data easy to quantify and analyze.
Single Focus: It asks about one specific behavior (difficulty of pronunciation), ensuring the respondent knows exactly what is being measured.
Why Question 2 is Bad:
Double-Barreled Wording: This is the primary error. It asks two different things at once: if the consonants are hard and if teachers should use AI. A respondent might agree that they are hard but disagree with using AI, making their "Yes" or "No" answer impossible to interpret.
Leading Language: Phrases like "Do you think... should spend more time" subtly nudge the respondent toward a specific answer, introducing response bias.
Vagueness: "Hard to learn" is subjective. Does it mean hard to hear, hard to produce, or hard to remember? Without a defined scope, the data collected will be inconsistent.