Phrasing a multiple choice question (MCQ)

Available for: Admins,  Campaign owners 

Multiple choice questions are versatile, intuitive and provide clear and easy to analyze data. They make it possible to isolate elements without the hassle of a written answer.

With the answer options you define, employees can answer very easily and you get structured results. On the other hand, the data you get is limited to the answers you provide. This means that if your answers are not comprehensive, you risk introducing a bias in your results.

In this article, we will discuss how to best compose your multiple choice questions on the platform by exploring each of its elements and possibilities: 

• The question
• The choices
• Single answer or multiple answer
  
  

The question

When you create a question in your question library, select the theme to which your question belongs and then select "Multiple Choice Question". You can then write your question.

Remember to translate your question into all available languages so that all your collaborators can answer it. To do so, click on the different languages one after another: 

ℹ️ A red dot tells you that the question was not written in the relevant language.

Our advices: 

• Formulate your question in a clear and neutral way so as not to influence the answers.

• Be as explicit as possible so that the employees' answers are unequivocal. In addition, the more precise the question, the easier it will be to cover all possible answers later on.

• Avoid negative wording, which is often misunderstood. If you have no choice but to write your question in negative form, remember to capitalize the negative element to avoid confusion.
  
  

The choices

You can configure up to 10 choices for the same question. 

Once written, you can arrange or delete the different choices as you wish using the buttons on the right of each choice.

As with the question heading, always remember to translate your choices into all languages by clicking on the language tabs.

Our advices: 

• To simplify the participants' experience, pick a moderate number of answer choices (between 2 and 5).

• Be sure to add an exclusive response if necessary: "none of the above", "I'm not concerned", "I don't know", etc. This will prevent employees from choosing not to answer, or selecting a fallback choice - which would compromise the integrity of your answers.

• Alternatives should be stated clearly and concisely so that contributors have no doubt when making their choice. 

• Avoid ambiguous terms such as "usually," "rarely," "some," etc. These are subjective and can be interpreted differently from one individual to another.

• As much as possible, your answer choices should not overlap. For example, to the question "How many remote work days would you like to have per month?" you can write your choices as follows: "1 to 2", "3 to 4", "unlimited"...
  
  

Single answer or multiple answer

The last step will be to choose how many answers you want to allow the employee for this question. 

You have the option of giving your collaborators the freedom to make an unlimited number of choices, or you can set the number of choices between 1 and 5.

To help you determine the answer limit, ask yourself this question:

Do I want a result with a 100% distribution of collaborators, and therefore be able to categorize populations according to their answers (→ one possible answer); or do I want to analyze trends (→ multiple possible answers).

1️⃣ Single answer MCQ 

They are ideal for binary questions. A participant can state that they "agree" with the statement, "disagree" or "have no opinion", but they cannot choose all of these answers. They are also very effective when asking participants to choose the option that best reflects their opinion.

If you choose a single answer, the results will be spread out over 100% because each participant will have chosen only one answer. This will allow you to categorize populations very clearly.

🔢 Multiple answers MCQ

They are slightly different from single-answer questions because participants can check off as many answers as they want, rather than just one. 
By opting for multiple responses, you will have results with distributions exceeding 100%. You could have 75% of employees checking off choice #1, 42% checking off choice #2, 58% checking off choice #3 and 12% checking off choice #4. This would give you a total of 187% of responses. This format allows you to analyze trends.

If you have any doubts about the relevance of your questions, feel free to talk to your Account Manager during your consulting meetings. And if you have any other questions, drop us a line at hello@supermood.fr - we will be more than happy to assist you. 💁‍♀️