On answers. We like and at the same time don’t like answering and getting feedback depending on whether it’s reassuring or unsettling. To answer a question is a moment of confrontation and negotiation, in short: labour. We try to select the answers that show us in the best light. Generally, response options are designed for standard scoring with dichotomous or multi-streamed scales relating to endorsement, frequency, intensity or comparison. A large volume of test questions is linked the psychometric Likert scale which often shows five balanced positive or negative options[1] .
As for my enquiry, I’m not looking at a test purpose or net efficiency of questionnaires. I’m rather concerned with the “relative” importance we assign to our answers, making informed or situation-based choices or simply replying out of the blue. Do we really distinguish between gradual nuances of reply options – for example when it comes to a scales of ‘trueness’ and optional items such as ‘true’ or ‘definitely true’? To say something is significant often implies an importance or relevance for decision-making. And how much is answering a game and guess – escaping a formal set up and adopting everyday behaviour.
My work ‘Good testing’ is based on a commonly used response scale highlighted by a randomly appearing light (‘tick’) underneath. Awaiting the next lit option our decision-making mode attempts to anticipate which one is next. There is no particular question to answer. Good testing supplies random answers to many. Accentuating notions of game and guess this work stands for considered or spontaneous responses. In fact even if you do not have one, it doesn’t stop and suggests another random answer. Just in case.
[1] Burns, Alvin; Burns, Ronald (2008). Basic Marketing Research (Second ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. p. 250
