Question mode

Use AskiaDesign's question mode to create your questionnaire’s data-entry mask (in other words, create and edit questions and loops). To switch to question mode, click question mode ( main_toolbar_mode_question ) in the toolbar.

Use routing mode to set up routing instructions that control the order in which these questions are asked and screen mode to design your survey's interviewing screens.

A number of commands and functions relevant to question mode are available from the Tree view context menu. Right click on one or more of the elements in the tree view of questions to the left of the main window to invoke the context menu. The same menu is also presented when working in routing mode Options which only apply to question mode will be greyed out when accessing the menu from routing mode.

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In this topic:

Variable types
Common variable properties
Editing long captions (preview and source tabs)

Variable types

In question mode, you can define your questionnaire by adding variables of the following types:

Variable type	Description
Chapter	Used to structure a questionnaire into different parts. You can also use a chapter to provide comments for people designing the questionnaire, or to display instructions between questions for interviewers or respondents. See chapters for details.
Closed question (single)	A question allowing one answer to be chosen from a list of response items. See single-coded questions for more details.
Closed question with scaled responses	A closed question for which specific weights can be applied to each response item, thus enabling the question to be analyzed as both a nominal and numeric variable. See scaled response items for details.
Multi-coded closed question	A question allowing one or more answers to be chosen from its response items. See multi-coded questions for details.
Numeric question	A numeric question for which minimum and maximum permitted values are defined. See numeric questions for details.
Open-ended question	An open text question. It allows any amount of text to be entered. See open-ended questions for more details
Date question	A question enabling the date to be recorded, in date and time format. See date questions for details.
Question table loop	Presents a set of sub-questions for each of the items in the loop. See question table loops for details.
Loop with selection at each iteration	Presents a set of sub-questions for each of the loop’s iterations. The concept of selection at each iteration means that the loop will be treated as a closed question, posed before each iteration. See loops with selections at each iteration for details.
Loop with preliminary selection	Presents a set of sub-questions for each of the items in the loop. The concept of preliminary selection means that the loop will be treated as a multi-coded closed question posed before the loop is started. See loops with preliminary selections for details.
Loop with iteration count entry	Presents a set of sub-questions for each of the items in the loop. The concept of iteration count entry means that the loop will be treated as a numeric question posed before the loop is started. The number, which is specified at this question, automatically determines the number of iterations or cycles of the loop. See loops with iteration count entries for details.

Note: as well as creating questions manually, you can also copy and paste existing questions, either from a questionnaire, or from the library. You can also use the paste structure command to paste the structural elements of a copied question into the selected question.

Note: as well as selecting a question in the question list by clicking it, you can also select two or more questions simultaneously. This allows you to perform the same operation (move, delete, etc.) on multiple questions. To select a block of questions that are adjacent to each other in the list, hold down SHIFT and click the first and last questions you wish to select. To select multiple questions not adjacent, hold down CTRL and click each question you wish to select. Pressing CTRL+A selects all questions in the list.

Note: you can quickly expand or collapse all chapters in the question list by right-clicking the list and selecting expand all or collapse all, as appropriate, or by pressing ALT++ or ALT+-- respectively.

Common variable properties

This section describes the properties that are common to all variables. For information on the properties available to a specific variable type, please refer to the topic on the variable type in question: chapters, closed questions, numeric questions, open questions or date questions.

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All variables possess the following properties:

ShortCut: the variable’s unique identifier. It does not depend on the language used and is not visible to either interviewers or respondents.
Long caption: the variable’s descriptive caption. It usually contains the text of a question, yet it can also contain comments or instructions intended for interviewers or respondents. Note: in the case of a multilingual questionnaire, long captions can be translated for each language. The maximum length is unlimited.
Short caption: the variable’s optional caption. Specifying a short caption serves two purposes. Firstly, it will be the name referred to in error messages during data-entry (e.g.: A response is expected for "Short caption"). Secondly, it will identify the variable in both Analyse and Vista. Note: in the case of a multilingual questionnaire, short captions can be translated for each language. The maximum length is 255 characters.
Scenarios: This property enables you to assign the variable to one or more of the *.QES file’s scenarios (or versions). By default, a variable is assigned to All Scenarios.

Note: you can set certain question properties on multiple questions, chapters and loops at a time. Select the questions, chapters and loops, as described above, then right-click and select set questions in the context menu. Finally, select allow don't know, visible (during data entry), ordered responses or visible in analyse to set that property on the selected items.

Editing long captions (preview and source tabs)

The two tabs (preview and source) provide alternative views of the long caption.

Preview tab

This tab is best used for viewing and editing the appearance of the long caption once you have entered the text in the source tab, although you can also enter the long caption text here if you wish.

In this tab, you can use the formatting toolbar to change the font, emphasis (bold, italic or underline), font color or background color to the selected text:

The necessary HTML code is generated automatically, and can be viewed by switching to the source tab.

You can set this tab to be the one opened by default by setting the option use HTML control for question captions to yes. Click here for details on setting options.

Note: when editing a short caption or long caption, if you want to add text substitution (aka text piping), (such as ??age??, to display the result of the question age in the caption), you can save time by dragging and dropping from the question list into the caption - askiadesign inserts the question title inside double question marks.

Source tab

Source: This tab is best used for entering the long caption text. It is opened by default when you create or edit a question. It displays the long caption text, along with any underlying HTML code (e.g. setting the font color).

To change the appearance of the long caption text, switch to the preview tab.

You can set the preview tab to be the one opened by default by setting the program option use HTML control for question captions to yes.

You can set the font size used in the source tab by changing the program option control font size.

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