--- title: "Open Ended Questionnaire Template: 20 Questions to Copy | Formswrite Blog" description: "A copy-ready open ended questionnaire template with 20 questions grouped by purpose, starter phrases that work, and a simple way to analyse the written answers." canonical: https://formswrite.com/blog/open-ended-questionnaire-template last-updated: 2026-10-08 --- # Open Ended Questionnaire Template: 20 Questions to Copy In short An open ended questionnaire lets people answer in their own words instead of picking from a list. The template below has 20 questions in four groups. Copy the group that fits your study, keep it to five to eight questions, and put your most important question first, while people still have energy to write. ## When to use open ended questions Use them when you do not yet know the answers well enough to list them, when you want the reason behind a rating, or when you want quotes. Use closed questions (multiple choice, scales) when you need numbers to compare groups. Most good questionnaires mix both: a few closed questions for counts, and one to three open ones for explanation. Our guide to [making a research questionnaire in Google Forms](/blog/research-questionnaire-google-forms) shows how to combine them. ## The template ### Group 1: Experience 1. Can you describe your experience with \[topic\] in your own words? 2. What was the best part of your experience, and why? 3. What was the hardest part, and what made it hard? 4. Tell us about a time when \[topic\] worked well for you. ### Group 2: Reasons and motives 1. What made you decide to \[action\]? 2. What were you hoping to achieve? 3. What, if anything, almost stopped you from \[action\]? 4. How did you first hear about \[topic\]? ### Group 3: Opinions and suggestions 1. What do you think we should keep exactly as it is? 2. What one change would improve \[topic\] the most? 3. If you could tell the person in charge one thing, what would it be? 4. What would make you more likely to take part again? ### Group 4: Closing 1. Is there anything we did not ask that you would like to add? 2. What question should we have asked? 3. Would you like to say anything else about your answers above? ### Optional follow-ups 1. Can you give an example? 2. What happened next? 3. How did that affect you or your work? 4. What did you expect instead? 5. May we quote your answer without your name? (Yes, No) Replace the text in square brackets with your own topic. Questions 16 to 19 work as a second step after a short answer. ## Starter phrases that work | Starter | Use it to find out | | --- | --- | | Describe... | The full story or process | | What was the hardest part of... | Problems and friction | | What made you... | Reasons and motives | | How did you feel when... | Emotions | | What would you change about... | Suggestions | | Tell us about a time when... | A concrete example | Starters such as "What" and "How" invite more detail than "Did you" or "Do you", which are answered with yes or no. ## Mistakes to avoid - Leading questions. "Why did you love our new design?" assumes the answer. Ask "What do you think of the new design?" - Too many in a row. More than eight open questions makes people stop. Put them after the closed questions unless they are your main purpose. - Vague questions. "Any thoughts?" gets "no" or "fine". Give a topic and a reason to answer. - Questions that need data people do not have, such as exact dates or amounts from memory. ## How to analyse the answers 1. Read through 20 or 30 answers without taking notes. 2. List the themes you see, such as price, speed, staff or clarity. 3. Go through every answer again and tag each one with one or two themes. 4. Count the tags and pick one or two short quotes for each theme. For fewer than 100 responses, a spreadsheet with one column per theme is enough. Report the count and a quote together, for example "12 of 40 people mentioned slow replies". ## Example: a mixed questionnaire from the generator For the brief "questionnaire on study habits and time management for secondary school students", the questionnaire maker's sample opens with two closed questions (year level and hours of study), rates statements under Planning, Environment and Support (for example "I plan my study time at the start of the week" and "I leave studying until the night before a test"), adds a checkbox question about distractions, and closes with one open question, "What would help you study better?". The open question comes last on purpose: people answer it better after the closed questions have reminded them of the topic. Limits worth knowing: three runs a day per visitor, an upload of up to 10 MB (PDF, Word, PowerPoint or text) or up to 20,000 pasted characters as source material, and an anonymous result is kept for 24 hours unless you save it to a free account. The questionnaire can be written in another language, including Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and Arabic. ## Generate a questionnaire from your topic If you want a questionnaire tailored to your topic with a mix of scale and open questions, use the free [questionnaire maker](/tools/questionnaire-maker). Describe the topic and the people who will answer, choose how many open questions you want, and read the result on the page. You can download it as Word or print it to PDF without an account, with three runs a day. Hosting it online to collect responses needs a free Formswrite account, and exporting to Google Forms is a paid feature. For a research study, the [research questionnaire generator](/tools/survey-generator/research-questionnaire) groups questions the way a thesis reviewer expects. Our guide to [writing a good survey](/blog/how-do-you-make-a-good-survey) covers question order and length. [Make a questionnaire free](/tools/questionnaire-maker) ## FAQ How many open ended questions should a questionnaire have? Between one and eight, depending on the purpose. A survey mostly made of scales needs one to three open questions. An interview-style questionnaire can have up to eight, but each one takes real effort to answer, so expect fewer and shorter replies near the end. What is the difference between open ended and closed questions? A closed question gives the respondent a fixed set of answers, such as yes or no, a list or a scale. An open ended question gives a blank space for any answer. Closed questions are quick to count, and open ones show reasons and wording you did not think of. Should open ended questions be required? Usually not. A required text box produces filler like "n/a" or random letters. Make the key closed questions required and leave the open ones optional, unless the open answer is the main data you need. Is an open ended questionnaire qualitative or quantitative? Open ended answers are qualitative data. You can still count how often each theme appears, which turns the text into numbers, but the answers themselves are descriptions rather than measurements.