Random ordering of choice options for a question?

Support
1

Folks,

Can ODK (or Enketo or some similar XLSForm-based tools) randomize choices
for a given question? I've poked around and have only been able to find an
old (2012) post on this that the feature was requested, but apparently
never implemented. The original post said it well: suppose I am asking
about beverages, with four choices of soda, juice, milk and water. Best
survey practice would be to randomize the order so that if water is chosen
infrequently, you can be sure that it's not simply because it always
appeared last. This would seem especially important for long lists and for
when the user is not an interviewer but the actual respondent themselves so
you can't be sure that all options were read (both true for me).

Thanks,
Joe

2

No.

Randomizing the order of the choices in the choice list should be fairly
straightforward (it does require Java software development skills).

If you contribute the code, we could incorporate it in the main code base.

··· On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:39 PM, wrote:

Folks,

Can ODK (or Enketo or some similar XLSForm-based tools) randomize choices
for a given question? I've poked around and have only been able to find an
old (2012) post on this that the feature was requested, but apparently
never implemented. The original post said it well: suppose I am asking
about beverages, with four choices of soda, juice, milk and water. Best
survey practice would be to randomize the order so that if water is chosen
infrequently, you can be sure that it's not simply because it always
appeared last. This would seem especially important for long lists and for
when the user is not an interviewer but the actual respondent themselves so
you can't be sure that all options were read (both true for me).

Thanks,
Joe

--

Post: opendatakit@googlegroups.com
Unsubscribe: opendatakit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
Options: http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit?hl=en

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"ODK Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to opendatakit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Mitch Sundt
Software Engineer
University of Washington
mitchellsundt@gmail.com

3

Could you please share a solution for randomizing the options in a select_one or select_multiple type questions?
I am unable to find an elegant way to accomplish this in XLSForm.

4

Hi @itch96

it's not possible in Collect. Please create take a look at Randomizing Lists or Questions within Groups and comment and vote as appropriate.

Regards,
Grzegorz

5

Rahul,

There isn't an elegant way to do this. I think it would be a great ODK functionality for survey work, as I mentioned in my original post. I implemented this by randomizing a number and then having the display options keyed to that. You can find my XLSForm here: https://tinyurl.com/y8o33vcm
I'm away from my computer on vacation this coming week but we could discuss by Skype or email the week of the 19th if you have questions . You can find me easily on the web: Joe Cook, economist at WSU.

Good luck,
Joe

2 Likes