Questions matrix

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In written surveys, a question matrix or item battery denotes several questions with an identical set of possible answers.

General

The answers in such a matrix can include both a scalar evaluation (such as school grades, for example ) as well as absolute properties to be assigned. The sub-questions (matrix questions) are listed one below the other and form a matrix with the answer options, which are usually listed above from left to right. In this one or more answer options are then ticked for each question (line).

Example of a question matrix with scaled answer

I took part in this sport huge interest interest little interest no interest
Soccer X
Handball X
basketball X
volleyball X

In such tables , an appropriate answer is ticked in each row that reflects the respondent's opinion on the various sports.

Example of a question matrix with non-exclusive nominal answers

This politician owns Business literacy Educational competence Social skills foreign policy competence
Müller X X
Meyer X
Schulze X
Schmidt X X

In such tables - depending on the question - one or more answer (s) can be given. In our example, depending on the respondent's assessment of which politician has which competence (most pronounced). Occasionally there is the option of not giving an answer to such questions. However, this is usually clarified by an additional column "None of the named".

classification

The question matrix is ​​generally considered to be an efficient form of asking questions, since it takes up little space on a paper or a screen . On top of that, a respondent only has to read the basic question once and thus saves time.

However, the effectiveness of the question matrix in surveys is controversial.

literature

  • Hans Bennigsen: Introduction to social science data analysis, 7th edition Munich 2005, in particular p. 36ff.
  • Nikolaus Jackob : Social research on the Internet: methodology and practice of the online survey. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 69.
  • Stefan Kühl , Petra Strodtholz, Andreas Taffertshofer: Handbook Methods of Organizational Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, p. 418.
  • Catja Prykop: Scene marketing: To increase brand value. DUV 2005, especially p. 196.
  • Christian Reinboth: Possibilities and limits of online surveys with special consideration of the data and sample quality. GRIN Verlag 2007, 111f.
  • Paolo Leon Vacilotto: Development of a portal for online surveys with AJAX, PHP and MySQL. GRIN Verlag 2008, esp. Pp. 10-13.
  • Erika Werlen: Studies on data collection in dialectology. Wiesbaden 1984.