How To Create A Multiple Choice Grid In Google Forms

Using Google Forms is super helpful for collecting info and staying organized. One cool feature it has is the Multiple Choice Grid. It's great for getting structured answers quickly, whether you're a teacher checking what your students know or a manager getting feedback. Creating a Multiple Choice Grid is a powerful tool that allows you to gather and analyze opinions, preferences, and responses in an organized and visually intuitive format.

Here, we'll walk you through the step-by-step process of creating a Multiple Choice Grid in Google Forms, equipping you with the skills to efficiently collect and interpret data for a wide range of purposes, from surveys and assessments to feedback and decision-making.

What is a Multiple Choice Grid Question?

Multiple choice grid question is a type of format mainly used in surveys and feedback. A form-filling person can respond to a set of questions under the same context and also share common answer options. Questions that can have two or many options can also be a part of Multiple-choice grid questions.

• This type of format is useful in gathering data.
• Google Forms shows a detailed report of this data which will be very helpful to analyse.

Google Forms Multiple Choice Grid vs Check Box Grid

In the Multiple Choice Grid, you can ask a set of questions that share the same type of responses. Each row represents a question, and respondents can select only one option from each row. This makes it easy to gather structured responses efficiently. One advantage is that it saves respondents time, allowing them to finish quickly. Despite offering multiple answer options, only one choice per row can be selected, streamlining the process for both the respondent and the survey creator.

On the other hand, the Check Box Grid allows for multiple options to be selected within a single row. While similar to the Multiple Choice Grid in offering numerous answer options, here respondents have the flexibility to choose more than one option per row. Additionally, the Check Box Grid includes an option for respondents to input text, allowing them to express their thoughts beyond the given choices. This feature provides comfort and independence for respondents, fostering a more fulfilling experience for sharing their understandings.

Different Types of Multiple-Choice Grid Questions

1. Matching Type Quizzes

In this type, Questions are asked to match with answers which are in different rows, so it's like a match the following implemented in Multiple choice grid format. Questions are given in row side and all options are available in columns Form filling person correctly needs to match to get the score.

Example: If a teacher wants to conduct a quiz for her students and wants to create a match the following for countries and their capitals. "Match the country with its capital " is given as a Question and Countries' names are given in rows and capitals in columns. Students get a score if they correctly match the row with columns.

2. Selection Type Forms

In this type, Questions are asked in a way such that answers one or more from the given list are selected. It's the most common type of multiple-choice grid question asked in most surveys, questionnaires, and forms.

Example: Suppose a company wants to ask "In which programming language do you select as a developer under different conditions?". Rows are given with conditions like "Which oops supporting language do you prefer?". Columns can have options like Java, Python, C++, JavaScript, etc.

3. Ranking Questions

In this type, Questions are ranked or compared with some parameters, preferences, or any other criteria. Here the person filling form is given the option like to choose the question from 'Best to Worst' or '1 to 10 on the scale' or 'Preferred to Don't recommend'.

Example: Let us suppose a restaurant wants to know how food is, how are the surroundings, how happy they are with services, etc. All the above questions can take common ratings like Best, Very Good, Good, and Customers Bad. So customers can just give ratings in a simplified Google form rather than having individual questions for every.

How To Create A Multiple Choice Grid In Google Forms

Now let's see the procedure for how to create a multiple-choice grid in Google Forms:

Step 1: Open Google Forms

Go to Google Chrome search for Google Forms and open the first link.

Step 2: Select Go to Forms

Click on Go To Forms and it will redirect to the Google Forms website. (Below is the cropped image of how the website of Google Forms looks like.)

Step 3: Open a New Blank Form

Click on Blank under Start a new form.

Step 4: Fill the details in Dashboard

This is the dashboard of the empty blank form.

• It has 3 main sections Questions, Responses, and Settings.
• Questions are developed by you and the format is decided by you. Responses are received when the intended users fill out your form.

Step 5: Give Title and Description

Let's first give the form a title and description. This information makes what all this Google form is for.

Step 6: Click on Untitled Question

Now move your mouse to the untitled question and click on the untitled question. You can see a lot of options available.

Step 7: Select Multiple Choice and Choose Multiple Choice Grid

Click on Multiple choice on the right side. You can see a lot of features available. Select Multiple choice grid from them.

Step 8: Type the Question

Click on the Untitled Question to type the question and enter the text of the question.

Step 9: Add Questions/Add Rows

Click on Row 1 to add the questions and Click on Add Row to increase the rows.

Step 10: Adding columns

Type 1: If you leave with one column (default), then it will look like this for the person who is filling the Google Form.

Type 2: If you add multi-column output, then it will look like this for the person who is filling out the Google Form.

Additional Settings for Multiple Choice Grids

More Options

If you Click on three dots that are on the downside help take, you can see more options:

1. How to Limit to One Response Per Column

• The person filling the form can't give yes to all in the above case. So the filling person needs to give different answers to all the questions.
• This feature will help take surveys, so you get diversified information from the survey.

2. How to Shuffle Row order

• This feature randomly shuffles the orders of rows from top to bottom. So If 10 people are filling your Google Form order will be different for each person.
• This feature will be mainly helpful for the teachers conducting their quizzes in Google Forms, stopping students from Malpracticing.

3. Require a response in each row

• You can enable Require a response in each row, so the form filler must give a response in each row (Or else He/she can't submit the Google form).
• This is one of the important features, This feature makes sure that the Person fills the response in each row unless He/she is not able to submit the form.

The below image shows what it will look like for the person left out of a row while filling out the form.

Note: To Regulary View How Your Form Looks Like - Click on eye on the right side of your Dashboard. This feature is very helpful to the designer of the Google form as it gives him an idea of how the page going to be for the form filler

Challenges of Making a Multiple-Choice Grid in Google Forms

1. Multiple choice grids are cut off on mobile

• It is tough both to create and to give responses for a multiple-choice grid in Google Forms.
• While creating a multiple-choice grid on mobile, as the screen space is limited and there are more features and options available it is tough for the form-creating person to utilize all options with ease.
• While filling out the form consisting of multiple choice grid questions, the user can't respond to these questions with ease. It is tough for him to cope with all the rows and columns, and select the correct answer without disturbing other selected answers.

2. It's often not the right tool for the job

• It is not suitable for questions that need, customized answers from the users.
• Creating a very complex multiple choice is tough and also sometimes confuses the form respondent.

Conclusion

Learning how to make a Multiple Choice Grid in Google Forms is super useful for organizing info and getting feedback. By following the steps mentioned in this article, you'll be able to design surveys that save time for both you and the people filling them out.

Understanding the differences between the Multiple Choice Grid and the Check Box Grid helps you choose the right one for your needs.