iSalient allows the quick and easy creation of many common types of survey questions. In this article we will discuss the basic procedure for crafting a survey question and using iSalient's advanced logic features, branching and conditions.
To work with survey questions, you'll need to create a new survey (or edit an existing one), and create survey page to work with.
To begin with, we'll look at the One Answer Drop Down. This question type offers your respondent a list of potential answers in a drop-down menu, such that they are able to select only one option.
Then you'll select the type of question you'd like to add--in this case a One Answer Drop Down-- from the list of question types labelled "Click Here To Add A New Question" on the Edit Survey page. A substantial-looking list of options for creating the question will appear beneath the dropdown. We'll examine these options one piece at a time.
The first step, pictured below, is to enter in the question itself. The "additional text" field is for any extra information you may want to provide your respondents, and the "question alias" is an internal label for your own use which will never be viewed by the respondent. Either of these may be left blank if desired.
Next, you'll develop the types of answers available to your respondent. Since this is a One Answer Drop Down question, you'll simply give them a list of possible answers to choose from.
The first thing you'll see in this Answer section is a drop-down list of predefined answers such as "Agree - Disagree" and "Excellent - Poor". Selecting any of these ranges from the drop-down will automatically fill in the list of answers with a ranges of standard responses. Choosing "Agree - Disagree", for example, will produce the following list of answers: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. After you have selected a predefined range of answers, you are free to change any or all of the answers that have been filled in for you. The predefined answers are made available strictly for convenience, and using them does not alter the way the question operates.
To the right of each question you'll find two additional optional controls. If you'd like for any of the answers to be selected by default, simply check the radio button marked "Default". If you are creating a scored survey or test, you may assign a point value to each of the answers by editing the values in the "Points" text field..
Should you need more than the default number of responses for a given question type (in this case it is five), simply enter the number of additional responses you'll need into the text field beside the "Add Rows" button, and then click that button.
You may delete any unneeded response options by simply clicking the "Delete" button beneath that row. Branching is equally simple to achieve: click the "Branch" button immediately beneath the response item you'd like to branch from. A dropdown list of survey pages will appear below the item with a list. The survey page you select is the page your respondent will be directed to next if they answer your question with that response.
The final two options available for this type of question are pictured below. If the "
Require Answer" option is checked, then your respondent will not be allowed to advance to the next survey page until they have entered an answer for this question. The "
Randomize Answer Order" option can help you to eliminate any bias inherent in the order of your response items by presenting the responsesin a random order to each respondent.
We've already already looked at the branching capability provided by iSalient's question-creation interface. There is another method that you can use to control which questions the respondent is asked:
Conditions.
Conditions allow you to display a particular question only if a previous question has been answered in a certain way. To set one up, simply click the "Add Condition" button beside the question that you want to conditionally display. The conditional settings will immediately be displayed.
To set up your condition, you'll first select the previous question on which the condition will be based. This question cannot be on the same page as the question you're making conditional.
In this case, we have selected our question from Page 1, and instructed iSalient to display this new question on Page 2 only if the answer to the first question is equal to "Sometimes Y". For convenience, all available answers to the question you're examining are listed in the "Suggestions" dropdown, and can be selected directly from that list.
A condition can be based on the answer to a question being equal to a particular value, not equal to a value, containing or not containing a particular value, or beginning or ending with a particular value. You can also base your condition on simply whether or not any answer was given.
You may add as many conditions to a question as you like, and you may rearrange the order of your questions and pages at any time by simply dragging them into the desired order.
