Google Forms - Question Types
The Text and Paragraph question types are both for text type answers. The biggest difference is the length of the answer. For short responses, like a few words, you would want to use the Text type. For longer, multi-sentence type answers, you would use the Paragraph type. While functionally, there isn't a huge difference, when you look at how your form looks, using the wrong one at the wrong time will cause your form to look funny and wastes valuable space.
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The Multiple Choice question type is where many different answer choices are presented and the user can only choose one of the choices. It is recommended that when using Multiple Choice, that you give 5 answer choices. This helps limit the student's ability to randomly guess correct answers.
The Checkboxes allows you to create questions that have the users check all answers that apply. The answer shows in the spreadsheet response as a comma separated list. While this can be sometimes hard to read and manage in a spreadsheet. Using a spreadsheet formula =SPLIT, you can divide these items into their own cells for easier reading. Read more about Google Spreadsheet Formulas here.
The Checkboxes allows you to create questions that have the users check all answers that apply. The answer shows in the spreadsheet response as a comma separated list. While this can be sometimes hard to read and manage in a spreadsheet. Using a spreadsheet formula =SPLIT, you can divide these items into their own cells for easier reading. Read more about Google Spreadsheet Formulas here.
Do you see a difference in the boxes below? Circles versus squares?
The List question type is great when you are asking the user to pick from a long list of choices or are asking repetitive questions. It is like the lists we see when asked to choose our state on a website. The greatest thing about this question type is that it takes up a little amount of space for lots of information.
The Scale question type allows you to create your own rating scale and to determine the high and low descriptor names. The data you get back in your spreadsheet will be numerical. It is recommended that you have an even number in your scales so that there isn't a neutral choice. Like on a scale of 1-5 with 3 being in the middle, it is like saying not bad, but not good. A neutral answer.
The Grid question type is the most complex of the types in that you can ask the user to rate a statement and then have them Agree or Disagree. It can be used for other types of questions as well but it works well for this type. It also works well for creating Likert type survey questions. The Grid question type could also be used to create self assessment rubrics or as a rubric data collection piece for projects. Click here to learn more about setting up a rubric.....
For the List question type, I was able to copy a list of state names from the Internet and paste, so I didn't have to type them all in.
Updated: January 20, 2014
