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Double-barrelled question

One question asking about two things, so a single answer has to cover both.

“How satisfied were you with the speed and friendliness of our support?” has two subjects. Somebody who found it fast and rude has no honest answer, and whichever they pick, you cannot tell which half they meant. The giveaway is usually an “and” or an “or” between two things being rated.

Split the subjects into separate questions so each answer has a clear meaning.

A question can also bundle a premise with a rating. “How useful was our new, improved dashboard?” asks people to accept that it improved before they answer.

Where it goes wrong

Compound answers hiding in a matrix row, where a shared scale makes it harder to notice the row is asking about two things.

See also

Leading question
A question whose wording points at one answer, so the result partly measures the wording.
Matrix question
Several statements sharing one set of answer columns, shown as a grid.
Likert scale
A set of ordered answer options, usually four to seven, running between two poles or up from none of something.

All 35 terms

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