A double-barreled question is composed of more than two separate issues or topics, which however can only have one answer. It is also known as a compound or double-direct question.
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In research, they are often used by accident. Surveyors often want to explain or clarify certain aspects of their inquiries by adding synonyms or additional information. Although this is often done with good intentions, this tends to make your inquiry confusing. There's no way of discovering the true intentions of the respondent from the data afterward, which basically renders it useless for analysis.
In court, however, these inquiries are used by lawyers to trick witnesses or suspects into admitting something unintendedly. Compound questions are most frequently asked during cross-examination. An example could be: As you approached the intersection, did you look down, change the radio station, and then look up and for the first time notice the oncoming car?
1. Double-barreled questions examples
The following examples are research-related.
- Is this tool interesting and useful?
This inquiry has two parts embedded. Hence the word “double-barreled”. Even though interesting and useful are both positive attributes, they are not interchangeable. Some respondents might find the tool interesting, but not useful. While others might find it useful, but not interesting. But how should they answer? And more importantly, how can the surveyor interpret these answers?
It would be better asked separately:
-Is the tool interesting?
-Is the tool useful?
Other examples
- How often and how much time do you spend on each visit to a dentist?
Should be
- How often do you visit a dentist?
- How much time do you spend on a visit to a dentist?
- How satisfied are you with your pay and work environment?
Should be
- How satisfied are you with your pay?
- How satisfied are you with your work environment?
2. Preventing double-barreled questions in research
Preventing these inquiries and the loss of actionable data they bring is actually quite easy. Make sure you have enough quality checks built in your survey creation and design process. Have a test group ready to filter out any confusing bits before you go to the masses.
For more information, check these tips on how to write more compelling questions and read this guide on how to pick the right question type for whatever inquiry you might have.
What's next?
- Survey incentives are actually not much different from any other kind of incentive. They are reasons, monetary or non-monetary, physical or emotional that drive or motivate people to fill in your survey. In other words, they would boost survey response rate.
- Survey Accuracy is the extent to which a survey result represents the attribute being measured in the group of interest or population. Determining how accurate the data captured by a survey reflects the entire population requires computing the confidence interval and the confidence level.
- Survey bias means that the inquiry is phrased or formatted in a way that leads people to choose a certain answer instead of another. The same applies if your inquiries are hard to understand, making it difficult for customers to answer honestly.