A common research mistake is not giving participants the option to give a neutral response.

For example, consider the following sample survey question:

How do you feel about President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

• Extremely unexcited
• Somewhat unexcited
• Somewhat excited
• Extremely excited

Unfortunately, writing a question in this manner does not give respondents the opportunity for a neutral response, such as “Neither unexcited or excited.”

This same rule also applies when using numbers as answers to a question. For example, the question above could be modified as follows:

On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being high), how excited are you about President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10

The problem with such a numerical scale, or course, is that the “middle ground” is actually 5.5, which is not an option.

A better numerical scale would ask participants to rank their answer on a scale of 0 to 10 or 1-9, where (in both instances) the neutral answer is 5.