Dear All:

I am designing a survey for a research project. This forum has already been extremely helpful, but I have still three questions to which I couldn't find an answer. I hope that somebody here can give me a hand with them.

In my survey I have an array by column question in which the respondents have to say what policy option is the first, second and third most effective one .

1) At the moment the respondents have to give three options. Is it possible to program this question in a way that only the first option suffices? (In case, they don't have a second or third preference)

2) There is one option "No policy measure at all". How can I program the question in a way that automatically all other options are closed when this option is chosen and the respondent can continue with the survey?

3) If I want a follow-up question why a respondent has chosen one of these options as first choice: What Relevance equation do I need to write in this follow-up question?

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Hi,
if you want to use this kind of array, I should say: Set it to "not mandatory" and use question validation.

I'd recommend to use a question of type "ranking" with maximum=3
and a question validation that the option "no ... at all" is on first rank and no other option is ranked.

Joffm

Dear Joffm:

Thank you for your prompt response. Before I turned to the Array by Column design, I tried to design the question as a ranking question (this is admittedly also a more intuitive choice). I established a maximum of three answers, but somehow the survey always asked me to rank all options and I could not figure out how to solve this.

When I tested the survey it was somewhat paradox: on the one hand I could not give more than three options as answers to this question because I had set this maximum, but on the other hand I could not proceed with the survey because it asked me to rank all options for this question.

Do you have an idea what could have been the reason for this problem?

I suspect the problem with your ranking question is that you set it to be mandatory as well as setting max 3 answers.

Regarding your initial questions...

1) As Joffm suggests, use a question validation equation:
2) Remove this row and ask in a preceding question if they have a policy measure. If not, hide the array question via relevance.

3) Retrieve the "1st Choice" answer with something like:

Hi,
though I do not like at all an answer option "no answer" in a ranking question, and always prefer an preceeding question.
But it's up to you. Here you get it.
With these answer options


and these settings


you get this

1. Normal ranking


2. "no answer" and other options -> error


3. only "no answer"


Joffm

Thank you both for your very helpful comments. I have followed your recommendations and opted for a ranking question in my survey.