Response Styles of Structured Questions in Business Research

Abstract

In a scientific research work, a questionnaire is an
important tool for collection of data from potential
respondents. The most important part of a questionnaire is a
question. The Questions are generally classified into two
categories: Open ended questions and closed ended question.
Open ended questions are called free response questions or
unstructured questions and closed ended questions are called
fixed response questions or structured questions. The main
objective of this paper was to explore the response styles of
structured questions. There is a range of measurement scales
and response styles that are used during the development of a
questionnaire. Different types of response styles of questions
under nominal scale, ordinal scale, interval scale and ratio
scales were discussed. Generally two types of nominal
questions were found in different research tools i.e.
dichotomous and multiple choice questions. Three types of
ordinal questions: rank order question, rating scale question
and constant cum question were discussed. Questions related
to Interval scales and ration scales were also discussed. The fill
in the blanks type response style was found in ratio scale
questions. When developing a new research tool, it is
important to clear which scale and response style to be used.
Keywords : Dichotomous question, Multiple choice question,
Rank order question, Rating scale question, Interval scale
questions and Ratio scale question.