Comparison of open ended and close ended Questionnaire

Two quite different reasons for using open-ended as opposed to close-ended Questions can be distinguished. One is to discover the responses that Individuals give spontaneously; the other is to avoid the bias that may result from suggesting responses to individuals. However, open-ended questions also have disadvantages in comparison to close-ended, such as the need for extensive coding and larger item non-response. The question “What is the most important, critical problem the Internet is facing today?” was asked in an open-ended and two close-ended question forms in a split-ballot experiment. The results show that there were differences between question forms in univariate distributions, though no significant differences were found in the ranking of values. Close-ended

questions in general yield higher percentages than open-ended question for answers that are identical in both question forms. It seems that respondents restricted themselves with apparent ease to the alternatives offered on the close-ended forms, whereas on the open-ended question they produced a much more diverse set of answers. In addition, our results suggest that open-ended questions produce more missing data than close-ended. Moreover, there were more inadequate answers for open-ended question.

Close ended Question	Open ended Question
Questions, where respondents are restricted to choose among any of the given multiple choice answers or ‘yes’ ‘no’ are known as closed format or closed-ended questions.	Questions allow the respondents to provide any answer they choose without forcing them to select from concrete options.
Closed-ended questions will lead to insufficient options for respondents to select from, questions.	Open-ended questions a respondent answers are almost always richer in quality.
More effective way to collect information from large population.	More effective way to collect information from small population.
Statistical tabulation is easy	Statistical Tabulation is hard.
To close down discussion we use close ended questions.	To open up discussion we use open ended questions.
To restricted information make sure you use a close-ended question. “Have you tried to solve this problem before?”	To open up a conversation you need open-ended questions. What have you already done to solve this problem?”
Close-ended questions should not always be thought of as simple questions that anyone can quickly answer merely because they require a yes or no answer. Close-ended questions can also be very complicated.	Open-ended questions are ones that require more than one word answers. The answers could come in the form of a list, a few sentences or something longer such as a speech, paragraph or essay.