Short message service (SMS or text messaging) surveys can collect data quickly and inexpensively. However, SMS surveys have space constraints that pose difficulties to questionnaire designers: Questions can only be 160 characters or less, surveys must be short, and many respondents use phones with small screens. In this article, we compare SMS and benchmark face-to-face surveys across four African countries to address three common questions in SMS questionnaire design. First, are multiple response questions feasible? Second, is it necessary to randomize response option order? Third, should “don’t know” response options be included? Our results provide practical guidance about how to improve data quality with this emerging mode of data collection.

中文翻译：

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短信服务 (SMS) 调查中的问卷设计

短消息服务（SMS 或文本消息）调查可以快速且廉价地收集数据。然而，短信调查的空间限制给问卷设计者带来了困难：问题只能在 160 个字符或更少，调查必须简短，许多受访者使用小屏幕手机。在本文中，我们比较了四个非洲国家的 SMS 和基准面对面调查，以解决 SMS 问卷设计中的三个常见问题。首先，多选题是否可行？其次，是否有必要随机化响应选项顺序？第三，是否应该包括“不知道”的回答选项？我们的结果为如何通过这种新兴的数据收集模式提高数据质量提供了实用指导。