A standard instrument consisting of a fixed set of questions used in social surveys is known as what?

• A. Questionnaires
• B. Open questions
• C. Social surveys
• D. Respondent

Answer: (A)

In social research, a fixed set of questions used to collect data from many people is called a questionnaire. The key idea is standardization: every respondent gets the same questions in the same order, which makes it possible to compare responses across individuals, quantify the data, and analyze it reliably. Questionnaires are especially good for obtaining comparable, scalable data, often using closed-ended items that campers can easily code and tally.

Open questions, by contrast, let respondents answer in their own words and are not standardized, so they’re harder to compare across a large group. Social surveys refer to the overall data-collection approach, not the instrument itself, while a respondent is the person answering the questions.