Investigation Database Design
When designing a survey database, it is important to consider how the data is structured and organized. Here is a comprehensive analysis of both database designs, along with alternatives to solve the problems posed:
Option 1: Single table with answer column
While creating a single table with an answer column seems simple, it has some drawbacks:
- Insufficient flexibility: This structure becomes rigid, limiting changes to the survey and requiring frequent modifications to the schema.
- Data Redundancy: Answers to each question are duplicated in survey submissions, resulting in redundant data storage.
Option 2: Question table and answer table
This design involves creating separate tables for questions and answers:
- tblQuestion: Stores question information, including question ID, survey ID, question type, and question text.
- tblAnswer: Record a single answer, linking each line to a question.
While this approach provides greater flexibility, large answer tables may cause performance issues.
Improved model
To mitigate scalability issues, consider a more complex scheme of designing static (immutable) data separately from dynamic (changing) data:
- tblQuestion: Stores questions and their predefined answers.
- tblOfferedAnswer: Lists the answer options provided for each question.
- tblSurveyResponse: Record user responses, linked to specific questions and predefined answers.
This improved model has the following advantages:
- Question reusability: Predefined questions and answers can be reused across multiple surveys.
- Scalability: By storing static data in a separate table, the answer table is kept smaller and more manageable.
- Support free-text responses: The "Other" answer option allows users to provide free-text responses, thereby capturing valuable qualitative data.
The above is the detailed content of What's the Best Database Design for Managing Survey Data?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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