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What it’s for

A Single choice question takes exactly one answer from a list — “Which of these best describes where you live? Would you say: a capital city, a regional town, or a rural area?” It’s the default type for a new question and the workhorse of most surveys.
  • For a scale (1 to 5, or very satisfied to very dissatisfied), use Rating — it works the same way.
  • To ask several items against the same list, turn on Battery — see Battery (grid).
  • There’s no multiple-choice type for voice. Ask a yes/no Single choice per item, or a Long text question and code the answers afterwards.

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Settings

Alongside the settings every question shares (Question settings), a Single choice question has: Questions imported from another platform can show extra answer modes (Interviewer recorded (imported), System (imported)) or an Answer order picker with Reverse or Cyclic rotation. These are kept as they came in; new questions offer only the settings above.

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The options lead-in

The lead-in turns the prompt and the list into one natural sentence. The interviewer adds the space after it for you. Good lead-ins are short: “Would you say:”, “Is it:”, “Are you:”, “Would that be:”. Vary them between neighbouring questions so the interview doesn’t fall into a rut.

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Answer options

Each option row has: Use the arrows to reorder options, + Option to add one, and the × to remove one. An option that a routing rule reads can’t be removed until the rule is changed — the save is refused with a message naming the rule.
A question can hold at most ten options, Read out and Volunteered only together. When you compile, any beyond the tenth are dropped (with a compile warning). For a long list, ask a yes/no gate question first and follow it with an open Long text question.

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Volunteered only options

Volunteered only options let the interviewer record answers you don’t want to prompt:
  • Don’t know and Prefer not to say — when these exist as Volunteered only options, a respondent who says them has that answer recorded instead of being nudged and skipped.
  • Common “other” answers — code the answers you expect as their own Volunteered only options.
  • A catch-all Other — a Volunteered only option whose Accept line reads something like “any answer that isn’t one of the other options — record it as other without asking further”.
There’s no “other, please specify” on voice. Don’t follow an Other answer with a “please specify” question; if the detail matters, ask a Long text question instead.

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Accept, Often heard as and Reject

Click Voice on an option to open three lists, one line per entry:
  • Put phrases people really say in Accept, not Often heard as. An answer matched through Often heard as is always checked with a “did you say…?”, so a real phrase listed there costs every respondent who uses it an extra turn.
  • Use Reject sparingly, for a genuine neighbour. Don’t use it to separate degrees (“a bit” vs “very”) that the options already separate.
The Recode value field (“Reported value — blank uses the label”) is also in this panel. The answer recorded on the call is the option’s text. Speak to the Voxworks team for further custom configuration.

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What the respondent hears

The ask. The prompt, the lead-in, then the Read out options: “How satisfied were you with your visit? Would you say: very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied or very dissatisfied?” On an Unprompted question, only the prompt. Hearing the options again. “What were the options?” gets only the options again — “Sure — the options are: …” — without the whole question. This doesn’t use an attempt, and an answer given straight afterwards is recorded. On an Unprompted question the interviewer says “I’m not able to read the responses out — just tell me in your own words.” A clear answer is recorded, and the interviewer moves on — with a moving-on line if that’s turned on. A possible mishearing — an answer matched only through an Often heard as line, or because it sounds like an option — is checked first: “Did you say neutral?” A “yes”, or repeating the option, records it. See Answer confirmation. An answer that isn’t one of the options gets a clarify line:
  • unclear — “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that — which one was it?”;
  • off the list, when the question has Volunteered only options — “It would need to be one of the listed options — though I can also record Don’t know if that fits better?”;
  • off the list otherwise — “I can only take one of the options I read out — which would be closest for you?”
“I don’t know” gets one nudge — “No worries — if you had to pick one, which would be closest?” — and a second “don’t know” skips the question, unless a Volunteered only Don’t know option exists, in which case that answer is recorded. A refusal of this question (“I’d rather not say”) gets one gentle nudge — “That’s no problem at all — we can skip it. Unless one of those is close enough for you?” — then the question is skipped. Set Decline to 0 to accept the first refusal (unless the question is Required). “What does that mean?” gets a short, neutral definition drawn from the question and its Context for the matcher, without suggesting an answer. Silence is met with a re-read in other words, then skipped when the Ask cap is spent. A question about the call, “I’m busy” or “stop” is handed to your FAQs or Behaviours; after an FAQ answer, the question resumes in other words. See Answers given early and interruptions. The number of each of these turns is set by the attempt caps — see Attempts and step levels.

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Routing on the answer

Rules on the Logic tab read the answer by option key, never by the spoken words:
  • Jump to question, Show question or Hide question — a later question, depending on the answer.
  • Screen out or Terminate interview on a particular answer — the respondent hears that outcome’s closing text and the farewell. If the screening answer was matched from a possible mishearing, it’s confirmed before the respondent is screened out.
  • Include option / Exclude option on a later question — for example, drop the party a respondent already chose from a “second preference” question.
  • Set variable to keep the answer for a later prompt.
See Routing rules.

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What is recorded

In Results → Questions, the question’s card lists the most common answers with counts and percentages. In the CSV export, each response has one row for the question, with the option text in the answer column. See Results and Responses and export.

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Next Steps