How can I randomize survey questions?

December 3, 2012 5:43 AM

How do I randomize questions in Limesurvey? Or which survey software should I be using?

I'm putting together a survey using Limesurvey to gather data for an academic paper. The questions are all radio buttons on a scale; essentially we ask respondents to rate items from 1-7. Creating the questions is not a problem, however the byzantine documentation for Limesurvey has not yet yielded how to randomize the presentation of the items. We want to present one item at a time, and have the user click on a radio button scale, which will then take them to the next page/item. I know there's something called a "randomization group", and I've put all the questions in the same group, but they are always presented in the order that they were entered (i.e. not in random order). This seems like it should be a fairly routine request, but I'm stumped.

Alternatively, is there a different tool we should be using? I've used google forms in the past, which was a much nicer interface (the Limesurvey admin panel is a mess) but I don't think randomization is possible there. We would prefer to use something that could be web-based but that we can host ourselves, and limesurvey seemed like a perfect solution, but I am spending so much time trying and failing to get it to do what I want that I'm very open to other suggestions. Open source and/or free is a plus.

posted by tractorfeed to computers & internet (2 answers total)

I don't know about your software, but you should take a look at this previous question about counterbalancing the order effect in questionnaires.
posted by anaelith at 12:54 PM on December 3, 2012

Yes, I want to counterbalance any ordering effects, and that is why I need to have the presentation order of the questions randomized. The previous question is about making paper copies of surveys which are randomized; I want to do the same thing only online.
posted by tractorfeed at 4:54 AM on December 4, 2012