Exclude item from randomization in grid question

Question

Hello everyone,

I want to include a quality check in a grid question and want to exclude the control item from the randomization, so that just the other items in the grid question are randomized but one item is always presented, e.g. in fifth place.

Is there a way to do that?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Create a constructed list by adding all members from the parent list except the one you want in a fixed position.  Randomize the list, then use the Insert function for the fixed item.  So, for example, lets say you have a parent list called GridRowMaster.  Create a constructed list and use that as the parent list.  Let's assume it has 10 items and you always want item 1 in the fifth position and all others randomized.

ADD (GridRowMaster, 2,10)
Randomize()
Insert (5, GridRowMaster,1)

Answer 2

Linda, you can create a constructed list that uses the INSERT function to assist here.

Let's say I have a parent list called ItemsList and it contains 10 items. Also assume item 7 is the control item that you would like to insert in to position 5.

Try this ...

ADD(ItemsList,1,6)
ADD(ItemsList,8,10)
Randomize()
INSERT(5,ItemsList,7)

Constructed lists are evaluated in a sequential order from top to bottom. Looking at this constructed list, we are adding in items 1-6 and 8-10, then randomising them, then inserting item 7 in to position 5.

Hope that gets your problem solved.

Comments

Thanks to both of you, this really helped.

I checked in the preview mode of the question itself but questions were not in the targeted order, however, I guess that's due to the preview mode of a single question not taking into account other specifications from constructed lists.
When I did a test run with the survey access link, the item was in the right position.

Thanks again!

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That's the correct behaviour Linda. The preview mode has not taken the affect of the constructed list in to account.

Some constructed lists rely on responses from a previous question, so in preview mode, it would never know what codes to display.

So it just displays them all without the constructed list actually runnng.