Survey design - multiple responses for one question

[SaviorSix]

Hello. I use a survey database design based largely from Duane Hookum's "At Your Survey"

This allows for multiple surveys, each with their own set of questions, and each response to a question is stored in a surveyResponse table.

For those of you that are familiar with this design and other survey database designs -

My dillema, is how to go about modifying this to allow multiple responses for a single question

for example: (on the paper survey)

Question 1. What health topics interest you most?
__________ ___________
__________ ___________
__________ ___________

-with the current design, only one response per question per survey taker is allowed, I need a way to allow an "unlimited" amount of possible responses to be stored for these types of questions, (in a correct and normalized fashion, ideally )

 

[SaviorSix]

relationships

 

[SaviorSix]

bumping thread

 

[SaviorSix]

second bump - is anyone familiar with this? If you need more info I can provide it!

 

[dkinley]

You can do searches on "multiple listboxes" or if prefer radio buttons "multiple select option" groups. I myself have no experience with this.

-dK

 

[DCrake]

Bear in mind that if the person completing the survey is using speech terms it will be recorded as freetext and can be very ambigious when attempting to analyse. If your topics are based on a predefined list then this is more efficient.

For every entry that can have multiple answers then you need a further table that relates back to the survey, participant, question number and response as your 4 part primary key.

Primary Key
SurveyID
ParticipantID
QuestionID
ResponseID

Again you would need a further table that holds the possible responses for each question that has a mutiple choice answer.

David

 

[SaviorSix]

Bear in mind that if the person completing the survey is using speech terms it will be recorded as freetext and can be very ambigious when attempting to analyse. If your topics are based on a predefined list then this is more efficient.

THank you for the response, David!

Oh Yes, believe me. Myself and the statistician have discussed this many times, unfortunately often the survey design is completely out of our control, and we are forced to work within the constraints of each different survey. This particular one has two questions which can have any number of responses., and one or two questions that can have 2-3 responses. The rest are based on predefined choices.

For every entry that can have multiple answers then you need a further table that relates back to the survey, participant, question number and response as your 4 part primary key.

Primary Key
SurveyID
ParticipantID
QuestionID
ResponseID

Again you would need a further table that holds the possible responses for each question that has a mutiple choice answer.

David

Let me post the database template. Would you be able to show me the relationships? I think I am getting what you are saying, but I am not sure on how to relate all this.

I'm guessing this table will be related to the responseTable..?

 

[SaviorSix]

bumping thread