Eduardo E Sierra Hello everyone!
When it comes to survey design, you may think that asking the gender question is standard but that’s not always the case.
Before including the gender question in your next survey, you need to consider two things:
1. Is this question aligned with my survey’s purpose?
2. Will this data help me gain valuable insights?
If you decide that it’s necessary to ask participants about their gender, you need to approach the question carefully.
Before moving on, it’s very important to understand the difference between gender and sex. Sex has to do with the biological characteristics of the person; whereas, gender is how the person perceives themselves regardless of their sex at birth.
You can approach this question in two ways:
Multiple choice:
Open-Ended:
As you can see, both questions are inclusive because it gives respondents the option to self-identify.
Very important, don’t forget to include the ‘I prefer not to answer’ option when possible. Also, participants may not feel comfortable responding so make sure that the gender question is not marked as ‘required’.
That’s all for now. I’ll have more survey design tidbits for you soon!
