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Randomize questions, question & answer groups

  • holch
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13 years 3 months ago #53209 by holch
Hmmm, I just had a quick look at the randomization of question groups.

Either I don't get it, or the way this feature is implemented isn't really helpful for most market research applications.

From what I understood, you have for example 3 groups A, B, C (let's better say pages) and each group is supposed to have say 3 questions in it.

So you have like question Q1.1, Q1.2, Q1.3. Those are the choices for the first position in the groups A, B, C.

Then there would be Q2.1, Q2.2 and Q2.3. Those would be the choices for the second question on each page, and so on.

However, when I speak of group randomization, I want to create groups of questions (usually those are the same questions, just for different products, aspects, etc.). Then the groups are shown in a random order.

The way it is right now, I can't find a use for it for now. But of course there might be some and I just don't see it. But for most market research projects that I can imagine, the current setup isn't really helpful.

I have uploaded the randomization test survey to the devtest, so it would be good if you guys could have a look at it and give some feedback as well.

I might be totally wrong, but I don't see much of a use the way it is implemented at the moment. I think the implementation at the moment is more complicated than actually necessary.

I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
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  • c_schmitz
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13 years 3 months ago - 13 years 3 months ago #53222 by c_schmitz
Replied by c_schmitz on topic Randomize questions, question & answer groups
Mazi was talking about a different thing. The feature in the dev branch is question randomization. So basically you can assign any number of questions to a virtual randomization group and within that randomization group the questions are shown in a randomized order (be aware that a randomization group is not connected to a guestion group in any way).
It is different from your desired feature of 'question group randonization', where you have question groups which have their group order randomized.

Best regards

Carsten Schmitz
LimeSurvey project leader
Last edit: 13 years 3 months ago by c_schmitz.
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  • holch
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13 years 3 months ago #53226 by holch
Hi Carsten,

Thanks for getting back about this. Yes, it is not group randomization, but randomization among a certain "group of questions". Looking at it a little more in detail, it seems to be useful, as it is basically the "randomize questions" bit of this thread, which is great.

The implementation in that sample survey was just a little confusing, so it didn't come out as if it would be a normal "question randomization", which it actually is. The sample survey is just a pretty complicated construction with 3 different "randomization groups".

As far as I have seen you just have write the "randomization group" in the advance features of the question and it will randomize the questions within this group.

The only problem that I see at the moment is to call this "randomization group" a group, as people might easily mix it up with "question groups". I can't come up with a better word at the moment, though.

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  • Mazi
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13 years 3 months ago #53232 by Mazi
Before writing the documentation for this we should really think about a better term for this feature. Currently it's quite irritating/unclear.

Suggestions?

Best regards/Beste Grüße,
Dr. Marcel Minke
Need Help? We offer professional Limesurvey support: survey-consulting.com
Contact: marcel.minke(at)survey-consulting.com
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13 years 3 months ago #53237 by jelo
Randomization of items (aka "subquestions" coined by limesurvey, right?)
Randomization of questions
Randomization of groups

Sound pretty clear to me. The implementation looks a bit strange. I just copy the name of the group into the field of the question to make the group randomizing. The logical way would be to allow adding a different type of group. But from a developer pov I can understand the way it is implemented. The feature helps a lot. The workaround was a messy one.

The meaning of the word "stable" for users
www.limesurvey.org/forum/development/117...ord-stable-for-users
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  • JoyLaneResearch
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13 years 3 months ago - 13 years 3 months ago #53238 by JoyLaneResearch
Replied by JoyLaneResearch on topic Randomize questions, question & answer groups
Here's are two situations I find myself in and what I'd really like us to be able to handle (smoothly?).

Situation 1: Client is showing three TV ads in a particular market. In the survey, they want to ask the same series of questions about each. However, they want me to randomize the order of presenting questions about the ads.

In the past, I could use the randomize_groups workaround that was on the documentation site.

Situation 2: Client has three types of product. Each one comes in one of three possible configurations. (Nine products in total.) They want me to show three products in a random order, featuring one product from each group of three.

In the past, I could use the randomize_groups workaround that was on the documentation site coupled with three random number generators with a range of values of 1-3 each and filter as follows:

Group1_rand()
Prod1 (show if RandomA = 1)
Prod2 (show if RandomA = 2)
Prod3 (show if RandomA = 3)
Group2_rand()
Prod4 (show if RandomB = 1)
Prod5 (show if RandomB = 2)
Prod6 (show if RandomB = 3)
Group3_rand()
Prod7 (show if RandomC = 1)
Prod8 (show if RandomC = 2)
Prod9 (show if RandomC = 3)

With this approach, I could show one product from each group and present the groups in random order.

I need a way to get to this as soon as possible because my clients are waiting right now for me to get this figured out and to launch their surveys...tomorrow. (Possible???)

Thanks so much!!!

(P.S. If developers need to see the code, I'd be happy to share.)
Last edit: 13 years 3 months ago by JoyLaneResearch.
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  • holch
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13 years 3 months ago #53240 by holch
Yes, there would be 4 different types of randomization one day:

1. Randomization of items/subquestions
--> This is already available for quite a while, but it would be good to be able to exclude more than one item from the randomization, e.g. other, none, all of the above, etc.

2. Randomization of questions
I think the new feature will cover this quite good.

3. Randomization of question groups
This would be the next step when in comes to the implementation of randomization in Limesurvey. It often happens, that you have to ask the same set of questions for different products, brands, situations, etc. However, you don't want to ask the questions groups in different order, in order to avoid a bias towards the first or the last brand mentioned, for example. This is a quite common necessity in market research.

And then there would be the fourth aspect, which I'd call randomization of subgroups of items/subquestions.

So you have a long list of items, which are grouped into different item groups. it would be good to be able to randomize the item groups (with the header being always on top, of course) and within the subgroups. But I think this will require quite advanced programming.

However, I think randomizing questions is already a good step ahead, next thing should be randomization of question groups. Number for would be great, but is more a nice to have for the moment.

I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
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  • holch
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13 years 3 months ago #53241 by holch
@JoyLaneResearch: I didn't really get situation 1. Do they want you to randomize the groups of questions (but order of questions within the groups is the same) or do they want to present several groups that contain the same questions in a specific order but randomize the questions within the group? I assume the first one, right?

Because the second one would be possible with this approach from the svn. It isn't stable though.

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13 years 3 months ago #53243 by jelo
holch wrote:

Because the second one would be possible with this approach from the svn. It isn't stable though.


I interpret

ask the same series of questions about each

as one question per Group. Not all three questions on one page.

Randomization of questions in one group
Randomization of questions in different groups

Or a pagebreak question type is put into a group to get randomization across different pages.

I don't know if LS2 sticks to the questionbyquestion / group/ allonone page concept. How would randomize question in "question by question mode" work? Virtual group names in the question attributes to connect these questions?

The meaning of the word "stable" for users
www.limesurvey.org/forum/development/117...ord-stable-for-users
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13 years 3 months ago #53246 by JoyLaneResearch
Replied by JoyLaneResearch on topic Randomize questions, question & answer groups
@holch: Situation 1 is randomize groups (pages) only.

None of my clients have requested randomizing question order within question groups (so far).
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13 years 3 months ago #53247 by JoyLaneResearch
Replied by JoyLaneResearch on topic Randomize questions, question & answer groups
My opinion:

Randomizing the order of question groups (pages) is more urgently needed.

If we can randomize pages but not questions, I can, if necessary place one question on each page to force random question order.

However, if we can randomize questions but not pages, I don't see how I can fake a random page order.

Not sure I said that very clearly. Did it make sense?
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  • c_schmitz
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13 years 3 months ago #53248 by c_schmitz
Replied by c_schmitz on topic Randomize questions, question & answer groups
jelo wrote:

The implementation looks a bit strange. I just copy the name of the group into the field of the question to make the group randomizing.


How is it strange? It is most flexible and very easy to configure. Just edit the questions you want to be in the same rand group and enter the same freely choosable name in each question for the new randomization attribute.

The advantage is that the so randomized questions can span across different question groups (in fact the implementation is not related to question groups at all).

So for example you can pick question 1a from question group a, question 5b from question group B and question 3c from question group c, just put them into your randgroup1 and these three question will be shown in randomized oredr, but at their destined places in the survey.

Best regards

Carsten Schmitz
LimeSurvey project leader
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