GuidedTrack Docs

How to design questions that allow multiple responses (i.e., checkbox questions)🔗

When asking a question about which categories or labels apply to a person (and more than one may apply), you should use a checkbox question. Be sure to *shuffle the answer options (to randomize their order) to avoid biasing the respondents towards picking the answers toward the top.

For checkbox questions, you do not need to include a "none of these apply" option since that option is implicit: by selecting none of the options, users are saying that none of them apply. To make this clear to participants, you can include a *tip saying something like the following: "Select all that apply. If none apply, leave them all unchecked." If you are concerned that they won't read this, you might prefer to include a "none of these apply" option, but please note that this is technically redundant.

It's helpful to add binary coding variables after the question (using *if statements) to make future data analysis easier. Currently, GuidedTrack doesn't support indented code beneath individual answer options in checkbox questions (though we plan to support this feature in the future), but you can still provide instructions for what happens (e.g., for the values that variables are set as) based on individual answers by using *if statements. Please see the example below for how you can do this.

Good checkbox question examples🔗

Here's a good example of a checkbox question:

*question: What pets do you own?
	*type: checkbox
	*tip: Select all that apply. If none apply, leave them all unchecked.
	*shuffle
	*save: petTypesTheyOwn
	Dog
	Cat
	Fish
	Bird
	Other

-- the following variables will be 0 unless they selected these categories,
-- in which case they will be set to 1

>> isDogOwner = 0
>> isCatOwner = 0

*if: "Dog" in petTypesTheyOwn
	>> isDogOwner = 1

*if: "Cat" in petTypesTheyOwn
	>> isCatOwner = 1

In the example above, note how we created extra coding variables to make later data analysis easier.

Bad checkbox question example🔗

Here's a bad example that fails to allow multiple answers when multiple answers are possible:

*question: What pets do you own?
	Dog
	Cat
	Bird
	No pets

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Next: How should you choose when to shuffle and when to use a specific order?