Survey & research glossary
Plain-language definitions for the terms you'll run into designing and analyzing surveys.
CAPTCHA
A challenge used to block automated bots from submitting fake survey responses, distinguishing human respondents from scripts.
Census
Surveying every member of a population rather than a sample of it - practical only for small or fully known populations.
Closed-ended question
A question with a fixed set of answer choices, such as single choice, multiple choice, or a rating scale - as opposed to an open-ended text question.
Coding
Sorting open-text responses into a defined set of categories or themes so they can be counted and compared like closed-ended answers.
Completion rate
The share of respondents who started a survey and went on to finish it, usually expressed as completed responses divided by delivered invitations.
Learn moreConfidence interval
The range a survey result is likely to fall within across the true population, calculated as the result plus or minus the margin of error.
Confidence level
How sure you want to be that your confidence interval actually contains the true value - typically expressed as 90%, 95%, or 99%.
Consent
A dedicated question type used to record a respondent's explicit agreement before continuing - commonly required for research involving personal or sensitive data.
Constant-sum question
A question that asks respondents to divide a fixed number of points (such as 100) across several items to show relative priority.
Construct
An underlying concept a survey is trying to measure - such as "trust" or "satisfaction" - that can't be observed directly and is instead measured through a set of related questions.
Correlation
A statistical relationship between two variables, showing whether they tend to move together - not the same as one causing the other.
Cross-tabulation
Comparing answers to one question broken down by answers to another - for example, satisfaction scores split by customer segment - to reveal patterns a single-question view would hide.
CSAT
Customer Satisfaction Score - a metric measuring satisfaction with a specific interaction, usually on a 5-point scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied.
Learn moreCustomer Effort Score
A metric measuring how much effort a customer had to put in to get something done, usually on a 1-7 scale from very low effort to very high effort.
Clear definitions improve survey decisions
Terms such as anonymous, representative, significant, confidential, compliant, and secure carry specific expectations. Use them only when your survey method and implementation actually support the claim.
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