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Question types
Before & After
Last reviewed: 31 August 2026
Use Before & After when you want to compare the group at two points in the same live session.
The presenter controls when the group answers the Before and After phases.
Set it up
Choose a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale and set the labels for the Before and After phases.
What participants can do
Each browser can answer once in Before and once in After. A participant can answer After even if they did not answer Before.
How the comparison works
PollSpark compares the average score from the Before phase with the average score from the After phase. It does not match one person’s Before answer with their After answer. A comparison appears only after both phases have at least one response.
The point change is the After average minus the Before average. PollSpark also shows the change as a percentage of the scale range. Moving from 1 to 5 on a five-point scale is 100% of the scale range.
No change
If the two averages are the same, PollSpark shows 0.0 and “No change”.
Copies and templates
A newly duplicated or template-created Before & After question always starts in Before.
PDF and CSV
PDF shows the Before and After averages. Once both phases have responses, it also shows the point change and the change as a percentage of the scale range.
CSV contains the individual scores, but does not label them as Before or After.
Using this question
- Before & After works in Live sessions only, not Survey.
- In Live, each browser can answer once in Before and once in After.
- Anonymous mode applies to the whole session.
- After the first accepted response, settings that could change the meaning of the results are locked.