Support for Likert scales in Build and Collect

I was designing an odk form using odk build and interested in developing likert scale kind of question, but i am not able to handle it in the feauters that are provided.would you please help me out with this

Anything else we should know or have? If you have a test form or screenshots or logs, attach here.

Hrm. I'm not sure why I never added Likert to Build's options. I've filed a ticket to add it, which shouldn't take long. In the meantime, your easiest option is probably going to be to export to XLSForms and add the appearance manually that way.

@Tesfit Is there a reason a select one isn't adequate? I ask because Likert implies a horizontal layout which is hard to display on devices where horizontal space is limited...

It also turns out that Collect does not support Likert, which is why I didn't add it.

@Tesfit You may also want to consider the "Horizontal Layout" style in Build which works today in Collect. It doesn't have a horizontal line between options like most likert scales have but it shows multiple mutually-exclusive horizontal options with labels. You can see it in action in the All Widgets form found on the default Aggregate server (https://opendatakit.appspot.com). It is called "List widget" and is near the end of the form.

2 Likes

@yanokwa, i used to think that way, but there are conditions in which it is necessary. for example, it is highly help full for decision in conditions when the data collect is supposed to put ranged values, from good to bad kind of questions(fuzzy). but generally you are right it could be handled with select one.

Hello,

I've been trying to get likert scales to look good using the Select one option in build, but to no avail.

A friend tried to convert to XForm, used the appearance 'likert' and then ran through Endeko. Looked great on Endeko but would not work on tablet.

I will be running surveys on a 10' tablet. Are you aware of any fixes / plug ins / updates to resolve this? Other than printing and laminating a big scale and then providing it to participants?

Thank you.
Liz

Hello,

I've been trying to get likert scales to look good using the Select one option in build, but to no avail.

A friend tried to convert to XForm, used the appearance 'likert' and then ran through Endeko. Looked great on Endeko but would not work on tablet.

I will be running surveys on a 10' tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab A).

Are you aware of any fixes / plug ins / updates to resolve this? Other than printing and laminating a big scale and then providing it to participants?

Thank you.
Liz

Enketo does have unofficial support for a likert appearance but it is not an official part of the ODK XForms spec yet. For it to be one, there will need to be a proposal for a non-hacky way to label each point along the scale. (I'm not sure what that sentence was about. The idea would be to use the select labels)

What have you tried and what is not working about it?

Hi Helene,

Thanks for your response.

I found out about the lack of collect functionality last night, which is a shame. Because the likert appearance was a standard option on XLSForm I thought it would be acceptable to Collect.

I've been trying to work around it with Build using a:
Choose One question > Label: question> Hint: guidance on scale( 0=not at all; 10 = completely) > Options : 0-10 > Style: Table.

This is ALMOST correct, except it doesnt offer any way to select one of the numbers when I pull it into Collect.

At first 'Style> Horizontal layout' sounded good but that doesn't work either, but it displays vertically.

Any advise gratefully received.

Thanks very much,
Liz

Support in Build is rather awkward and something we should look into improving. You will need to first create a group and check "Display On One Screen". In that group, you will need to include two "Choose One" questions -- one for the labels and one for the selection. The first one is exactly what you did:

That will get just the labels. The second one is Choose One question > Label: your question text > Options 0-10 > Style: Horizontal. However, the appearance added on that second question doesn't work in collect. horizontal needs to be changed to list-nolabel. As far as I know this can only be done by modifying the XML. likert.xml (6.5 KB) is the resulting file which I have confirmed works in Collect.

EDIT
@LizMarine there's a simpler way using the list appearance. You can create a single Choose One question in Build with style Table. Then edit the XML to change label to list. likert-list.xml (3.2 KB) is the resulting XML.

I've filed an issue at https://github.com/XLSForm/xlsform.github.io/issues/125 to clean up the various appearances that produce a horizontal layout of choices. Once that's addressed we can make sure the features that stay are supported by Build.

1 Like

Thanks very much, I've been away so am hitting this refreshed and hopefully it will work first time after a break from it! I need to figure out how to edit the xml though.
Thanks for the guidance.

A specialized likert question type is available in Collect since v1.25.0. See the documentation. Build has not yet been updated to include it.

You can specify the appearance as likert after setting the options on the choices sheet and it will appear that way on the mobile app

Documentation for the likert widget in Collect and XLSForm is available here.

Thanks to @Florian_May, you can create a likert question from Build by adding a "Choose One" control and picking the Likert Style:

1 Like