Research Tips

General and Specific Questions

Research objectives often call for collection of both general and specific information. For example, customer satisfaction is often measured with both a general question that asks about overall satisfaction and a series of questions focusing on satisfaction with particular aspects of a product, service, or purchase experience (e.g., knowledge of sales staff, selection of products offered, delivery time for product selected, etc.). Normally, it’s best to ask general questions before more specific questions on the same topic: asking the specific questions first may result in respondents (consciously or unconsciously) providing an answer to the general question that is consistent with their answers to the previous specific questions, even if that isn’t an accurate reflection of what they really think.