Rank

A Rank question is used for obtaining the respondent’s order of preference for a list of items.

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Adding a Rank question

Here’s how to add a Rank question to the survey flowchart:

1. Add a Rank object to the flowchart. In Survey Editor (Legacy), drag it from the Toolbox, or double-click it. In Survey Editor (Beta), drag the Rank card from the Add to survey toolbar, or click it to add it at the end

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Appearance

Options appear as cards on the left of the screen. Respondents are required to drag and drop each card into a box on the right in the order of interest. Cards can be reordered once in the box by dragging and dropping.

You can Preview the survey at any stage to see how the question appears and behaves in the context of the survey.

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Question format

Ranking is the only Rank question format available.

Ranking — Options appear as cards on the left of the screen, with a container on the right for dragging and dropping the cards into preferred order.

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Controls

The Controls property allows you to tailor the presentation of questions using optional keyword commands. To edit the default Controls:

1. Select the question object in the survey flowchart
2. In the Properties Pane, open the controls: in Survey Editor (Legacy), click the Edit button next to the Controls property; in Survey Editor (Beta), expand the Controls section
3. Edit the controls for the selected question format as required. In Survey Editor (Legacy), click OK to close the Controls dialog
4. Save and preview the survey

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Multimedia

You can add images, video, and audio to the Question Text. Images can also be inserted into Answer Text.

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Data structure

For Rank questions, you’ll find one variable in your dataset for each answer. For example, if Q1 has 4 answers (with answer codes 1, 2, 3, and 9), the dataset contains 4 variables, labeled Q1_1, Q1_2, Q1_3, and Q1_9.

Responses are captured in integer format, with each value representing the rank order (i.e. 1 = 1st, 2 = 2nd, 3 = 3rd, etc). Blank (null) cells will appear in the dataset where the question or answer weren’t presented to the respondent.

Question Format	Variable Type	Example Response
Ranking	Integer	Q1_1 = 3

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Randomize answers

By default, all answers are displayed in sequential order according to their Answer Code number. To avoid potential response bias due to an order effect in questions with a categorical scale, randomization of answers is recommended. Randomization shuffles the answers so they’re presented in a different, non-sequential order to each survey respondent. You can randomize blocks of answers and exclude individual answers from being randomized.

Here’s how to randomize all answers in a question:

1. Select the question object in the survey flowchart
2. In the Properties Pane, check the Randomize box
3. In Survey Editor (Legacy), click OK to confirm that you want to randomize answers. Survey Editor (Beta) doesn’t ask you to confirm.

When you check the Randomize box, the Sort Order for every answer is automatically reset to 1, meaning that all answers will be included in the randomized block. If there are answers that you want to be excluded from the randomized block (e.g. for a “none” response that you want to always appear at the end of the answer list), you’ll need to alter the Sort Order for that answer individually.

Here’s how to manually edit the Sort Order of answers:

1. Select the question object in the survey flowchart
2. In the Properties Pane, click on the Answers tab
3. Select the answer that you want to exclude from the randomized block
4. Change the Sort Order to a higher value

Adding answers after randomization

If new answers are added to a question after the randomize property box has been checked, the Sort Order for these new answers needs to be edited manually if they’re to be included in the randomized block.

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Display logic

Often in surveys, there are questions that aren’t applicable to a certain subset of respondents. Survey Shaper allows you to specify the display logic via filters so that only those who meet the filter criteria will be presented with the question.

Here’s how to create a question filter:

1. Select the question object in the survey flowchart
2. In either the Quick Update Box or Question Properties Tab, click on the Define Filter box
3. Enter the filter criteria by typing directly in the box (remember to preface all question references with ”@”), or by using the Filter Builder button on the far right of the property box in Survey Editor (Legacy), or Open rule builder in Survey Editor (Beta)
4. Save the survey — the filter description is now visible in the survey flowchart (if filters are turned on in the flowchart display options)

Use parentheses for complex filters

For complicated filters, use parentheses (round brackets) to ensure that the syntax is being evaluated in the order intended.

All questions referred to in the filter need to precede the filtered question. Further, a filtered question can’t be placed on the same page as any questions used to define the filter.

If you have a block of questions requiring the same filter criteria, you may want to use a Skip object to skip over the block of questions, as multiple filters may negatively impact the speed of the survey.

Filters can also be applied to individual answers via the Code Filter property in the Answers Tab. As with question filters, you define the criteria based on who you want to be able to see the answer. The answer choice isn’t visible to anyone who doesn’t meet the filter criteria.

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Page groups

You can create page groups to display multiple questions on a single page.