A closed-ended questions are those questions for which the participants are provided with options from which to choose a response.
Advantages of Closed Ended Questions
- It is easy to calculate percentages and other hard statistical data over the whole group or over any subgroup of participants.
- Modern scanners and computers make it possible to administer, tabulate, and perform preliminary analysis in a matter of days.
- It easier to track opinion over time by administering the same questionnaire to different but similar participant groups at regular intervals.
- These questions allow the researcher to filter out useless or extreme answers that might occur in an open format question.
Disadvantages of Closed Ended Questions
- There needs to be sufficient choices to fully cover the range of answers.
- It is difficult to understand and interpret the closed questions.