Questionnaires are one of the most important tools in psychological assessment, yet the impact of different numbers of response options on psychometric properties of questionnaires is limited. This study extends existing research by analyzing respondents’ acceptance of and the efficiency of different numbers of response options and replicate findings on reliability and validity. We studied these questions in 540 respondents who filled out the Big Five Inventory–2 and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Two response options, 11 response options and the visual analog scale showed disadvantages in acceptance compared with the original number of response options. The completion time increased by 1.7s per item when moving from 2 to 11 response options. Cronbach’s alpha (but not ordinal alpha based on polychoric covariance) was lowest for two response options. Validity was unaffected. Overall, compared with the typical choice of five or seven response options, fewer or more response options resulted in disadvantages.

问卷是心理评估中最重要的工具之一，但不同数量的回答选项对问卷心理测量特性的影响是有限的。本研究通过分析受访者对不同数量的响应选项的接受程度和效率，并复制有关可靠性和有效性的发现，扩展了现有研究。我们在 540 名填写了 Big Five Inventory–2 和情绪调节问卷的受访者中研究了这些问题。与原始响应选项数量相比，两个响应选项、11 个响应选项和视觉模拟量表在接受度上显示出劣势。从 2 个响应选项变为 11 个响应选项时，每个项目的完成时间增加了 1.7 秒。对于两个响应选项，Cronbach 的 alpha（但不是基于多变量协方差的序数 alpha）最低。有效性不受影响。总体而言，与典型的选择五个或七个响应选项相比，更少或更多的响应选项都会导致劣势。