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Multiple Choice Questions
Multiple choice questions, which allow the respondent to
select only one answer from a list, are the backbone of a
self-administered web survey. Typically,
they will make up the great majority of questions in a survey.
These questions can be used to make conditional skips to
any question in the survey, according to which answer was
selected. When the respondent selects an answer and clicks
on the skip instruction, his or her browser will automatically
skip to the question that has been linked to that answer. Thus,
multiple choice questions also can be used to screen respondents
and direct them into appropriate lines of questions. GOTO examples appear
later.
Each Check Only One question needs as a minimum these commands:
.QUESTION = variable name, TYPE=MULT
.ANSWER = default answer number, or = variable name
answer line format tag
.NEXT
The TYPE command must be set to "MULT."
By default, multiple choice questions will be presented in
a vertical layout with each answer listed on a separate
row with a leading radio button.
You may optionally use format tags to tell the QPL
converter to display a question in a horizontal format.
Here, the question text is displayed in the column on
the left and the answers are used as column headings.
Further, you may stack several questions together to
create a "matrix" where the radio buttons are inserted
in the intersection between the question text and the
column headings. This is covered in more depth later on
under "Matrix Type".
ANSWER Command
The ANSWER command is required and is used to separate
the question text from the list of responses. You may
also use it to set the default answer for the MULT type
(i.e., the answer that will be checked the first time
the respondent sees the questionnaire), and
copy an answer list (including the default answer setting)
from a previous question.
The last item in the list will be checked unless you set the
default to another number. For example, if you have three
items in your list and you want the second item to be checked,
you would set the ANSWER command to 2.
You may also set the ANSWER command to 0 (zero) if you do not
want any answers to be checked by default. Once the respondent
clicks on an answer, that response will be checked.
The respondent may move a check mark, but the respondent may
not uncheck all of the responses (i.e., to put the question
back into its original, unchecked state). Therefore, you
should always use the last category to let the respondent
indicate an answer that is not any of the above, such as
"Don't know," or "No response."
At least one answer line is required. There is no limit on
the number of answer lines you may use, but each answer must
be typed on a separate line and be less than 240 characters long
(even less if bolding, italics, or underlining is involved).
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