Hi all,

I am looking for any solution how to make random order of questions for each participant of my survey in the Question by Question design.

In my survey participants have to read a question and decie if YES or NO. There is like 150 questions which have to be in different order for each participant.
Example:
participant A will see questions in order 1 - 4 - 2 - 3 - 5 etc.
participant B will see questions in order 2 - 5 - 1 - 4 - 3 etc.

I already found (using the LimeSurvey wysiwyg interface 2.0+) there is the possibility to set the randomize group for questions - but this works only for GROUP BY GROUP design. If I set the format to QUESTION BY QUESTION it doesn't work.

I need to participants see only one question per page, no more - that is why I am interested in randomization in Question by Question design.


Thanks for any advice...

Just put only one question in each group. Group by Group is the standard way to go.
Sometimes it makes sense to put two questions on one page. So group by group design gives you flexibility.

jelo wrote:
Thanks for this tip, but I already try it :-/
- I made several groups with only one question in each
- in each group properties I set the same random group
- I set the design to Group-by-Group
--> the result is still the same - no change of order in groups

attached is the screenshot of the Group settings - it is the same for all groups
and also the lss file with the structure of my survey

I will really appreciate any help with this, since now I am totally lost...

Ok, I see you're using LS2. Might be a bug with the groups.

Take a look at the advanced settings of "each question" (not the group)!
You will find a field in the logic section "Randomization group name".
Try that in your question by question mode to randomize order of these questions.


A demo survey file for different randomization can be found here
docs.limesurvey.org/Expression+Manager+S...Randomization_Groups

Hi, I'm trying to do this as well and am still stumped. I have a list of scale questions and I would like each participant to be presented with every question on the list, only in a random order, and a single question per page. When you say this can be done with "randomization group name" does this mean I put each question in its own group and give each question a different "randomization group name"? Or do they all have the same randomization group name? Are question groups entirely different from randomization groups? Should questions be in the same question group?

I think that randomization for purposes of counterbalancing is likely to be a fairly common request, and it's a little frustrating that there isn't an easier way to do this, or at least some documentation on how it could be achieved. Thanks for any assistance.

Attach a survey with what you tried so far.

I am using 1.92 and stil waiting for a stable version of 2.0. Perhaps there is a bug in LS2, perhaps not.
Version 1.92 is only offering randomization via the advanced settings in every question. Put the same name in every question which should change order with each other.
The field "randomization group name" in the questionsgroups is offerend since LS2.0.
I haven't found a documentation about that feature as well. So I cannot comment on it. I tried it and it didn't worked (Order of questions groups was not changed).

First I would check if a new update for LS2.0 is available. Perhaps the feature is now working.

Next thing is to find a explanation of indented behaviour of these two randomization features in LS2. Perhaps they were implemented in a different way and we are just making a silly mistake.

If we get no response a bugreport will be the last way to get attention on the topic.

Update: Version 2.00+ Build 121204

The "randomization group" feature for Question Groups is not changing order of groups.

Really seems to be buggy. Still searching for a few lines of text how this feature is intended to be used. Still unsure about the requirements for that feature.

The attached example above contains three groups with the same randomization group name in the all three question groups. The order of display is always 1 - 2 - 3.

Thanks for your help, jelo. I am very surprised that this is not a simple feature of LimeSurvey, because it is a completely standard thing to do when conducting experiments in academia. Even commercial online survey software (e.g. Survey Monkey) can do this. Should I fill out a feature request? Or a bug report? I'm not sure if it's a bug because I don't exactly understand whether complete randomization on a question-by-question basis is supposed to be supported.

I have open a ticket in the bugtracker. Would be nice if you follow the status of the ticket. Programmers might have questions.

bugs.limesurvey.org/view.php?id=7024

Unfortunately, I've already opened one bug report before you:

bugs.limesurvey.org/view.php?id=7011