Using Visual Analogue Scales and Sum Slider Questions

Using Visual Analogue Scales and Sum Slider Questions

I have come across many Survey Templates that use an assortment of Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio style questions. Today, I want to discuss the Visual Analogue scale, the Sum Slider question and how it can positively impact your respondents experience.

The Visual Analogue scale is a psychometric type of measurement instrument. It has been used quite often in healthcare to assess characteristics or attitudes that are difficult to measure directly. For example, we see healthcare practitioners use them to measure the quality or frequency of various symptoms such as pain or subjective psychological states in multiple disorders.

Canadian hosted survey tools like FactFinder offer the Sum Slider question to assist health professionals measure these characteristics or attitudes. Also, I have found the Survey Templates quite easy to build which is a nice bonus!

The main benefit is that this question type offers the respondent a continuous scale. For example, your target population will not feel like they are being forced into a Likert or Matrix type of Scale.

Here are a couple of other benefits of this question:

• It is visually appealing to the respondent on their mobile device;
• Respondents can freely drag the slider icon and make a choice; And
• There is an automatic Quantitative chart associated to this question.

Click Here to see an example of the Sum Slider question in the FactFinder Solution powered by Jitsutech.