Millisecond Online Community

We have an expermiment involving IAT, Likert, demographic (we used a modification of the sample script), and other assorted questions.  Our IRB likes us to offer participants the option of skipping questions.  Is there a general way, other than offering Cont + B or using the correctresponse and timeout scripts, to put a general "Continue" or "Refuse to Answer" button at the bottom of the screen (particularly during the Likert items and demographic survey pages) that will allow a user to move on without inputing an answer?

Thanks. 

As for survey questions, you can simply add '/ required = false'. For example:

<dropdown sex>
/ caption = "Sex"
/ options = ("female", "male")
/ required = false
</dropdown>

According to the help-file, this setting applies to most survey-type question formats (<checkboxes> <dropdown> <listbox> <radiobuttons> <textbox>). However, it doesn't seem to work with textboxes. This might be a bug.

~Dave

As for the likert trials, there's no straightforward way to add a "skip" button. This is because Inquisit currently allows only one (type of) response per trial. To solve this, I would refrain from using the <likert> element. Instead, I'd set up custom likert scales using the standard <trial> element. With this approach you could easily add an additional "skip" response. There's a sample showing how to construct custom likert scales available on the samples page (http://www.millisecond.com/download/samples/v2/CustomLikert/customlikert.zip). You might want to look into this possibility. Always make your IRB happy!

Best,
~Dave

One way to satisfy the IRB with <likert> elements would be to simply label one of the response buttons "skip" or "no answer", as in:

<likert example>
...
/ anchors = ("yes", "I think so", "maybe", "not really", "no", "no answer")
...
</likert>

-Sean

Sean and Dave,

Thank you both for the information.  We had initially tried including a "no answer" button in the <likert> elements but the pilot participants found it awkward and distracting.  Converting them to custom likert scales with a "refuse to respond" button at the bottom of the screen was not too difficult and keeps the scale itself untainted.  If I run into any problems with that method, I will add them to this thread.  Thanks again.  

Hi, Dave

My research team wants to allow participants to skip an item on a survey page, but wants to make sure the item was not overlooked by mistake. And, they do not like the idea of having a special response button for refuse to respond (might be too easy to click this all the time...and too easy to program).

We were hoping that the first click of the continue button would highlight the question with missing data in red as it is currently when /required=true. At the same time, we would like to reset /required=false for that item so that a second click of the continue button would allow the participant to move on without answering the item. Is this possible? Is there a continue button click event that can be used to reset the required property for the item?

Thanks,

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

I'm sorry, but right now I can't think of any (easy) way to do this. I'll keep thinking about it, though, and will post here if I come up with a solution. But honestly, I don't think that what you want can presently be done with Inquisit.

As a workaround, though, you could still set '/ required = true' for your survey questions (thus keeping the red higlighting) and additionaly include a 'no response' option. Here's an example for a <dropdown> element:

<dropdown income>
/ caption = "Please indicate your monthly income:"
/ options = ("less than 500$", "500-1000$", "1000-1500$", "1500-2000$", "2000-2500$", "more than 2500$", "I don't want to answer this question.")
/ required = true
</dropdown>

Best,
~Dave

Thanks, Dave. I think that asking participants to specifically select a 'refuse to respond' button is best anyway. Then we know for sure why there is no response.