Survey researchers frequently use randomization as a tool to combat survey bias. Randomizing the order of questions, pages, and/or answer options in your survey prevents bias introduced by order and/or survey fatigue. Within SurveyGizmo you can randomize questions, pages and answer options!
Randomize the Order of Answer Options
- Edit the question and go to the Layout tab.
- Select the option to Randomize Options (or Randomize Row Order or Randomize Columns).
- Click Save Question.
This setup is the same if you wish to randomize row or column headers.
Fix the Position of a Given Answer Option When Randomizing
- Edit the question.
- Scroll to the answer option you wish to exclude and click the pencil icon to edit.
- Select Yes under Fixed Position.
- Click Done and Save Question.
Compatible Question Types
| Question Type | Answer Randomization | Fixed Setting |
|---|---|---|
| Radio Buttons | ||
| Checkboxes | ||
| Dropdown Menu | ||
| Image Select (Single and Multiple) | ||
| Textbox List - Randomizes row order | ||
| Dropdown Menu List - Randomizes row order not options | ||
| Rating (Likert Scale) | ||
| Drag & Drop Ranking | ||
| Ranking Grid | ||
| Continuous Sum | ||
| Star Rating Grid - Randomize row order and columns | ||
| Slider List - Randomize row order and columns | ||
| Grid Questions (Radio Button, Checkbox, Dropdown Menu and Textbox) - Randomize row order and columns | ||
| Custom Table - Randomize row order |
What should I know about answer option randomization?
- All built-in randomization features in SurveyGizmo utilize true randomization, meaning it will not ensure even representation of elements. Our Professional Services team can assist with balanced customization if you wish!
- The specific random order in which randomized answer options were displayed to the respondent is not available in reporting.
- If using column randomization within a grid question, note that this feature is not compatible in conjunction with columns that are piped-in and the fixed and N/A special setting for columns.
- Piped options (including grid rows) will display in the original order they were in in the source question (as seen on the Build tab). This is the case even if the answer options on the source question are set to randomize. There is not a way to change the order of piped options at this time.
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 02/09/2018
@Village: We do not have a built-in option to achieve this. This is the kind of customization that our Programming Services team could do for you. You can learn more here if you are interested:
https://www.surveygizmo.com/programming-services/
Bri Hillmer
Documentation Coordinator
SurveyGizmo Customer Experience Team
— Shopee2 on 02/08/2018
I want to order the sub questions based on 'Order of randomised options of primary question'
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 03/07/2016
@Jer00031: We do not currently have this option for slider questions. It is available for likert scale questions though it sounds like with the range you are using this wouldn't work. For what it is worth here is the documentation for how to set it up with likert scale questions:
http://help.surveygizmo.com/help/article/link/randomly-flip-scales?_ga=1.63744175.1088222936.1455232273
I think what you propose is something that other users might want. I'll be sure to make note of it for future improvements!
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— Jer00031 on 03/07/2016
I'm not sure if this is really covered above. I'd like to be able to change the presented order of a single slider. So, for 50% of cases I'd like people to get 0 - 100 and for the other 50% I'd like them to see 100-0. Is this something I can do?
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 12/17/2015
@Nicolasweiser: This was actually covered in this tutorial but the description was a little odd. I updated it so other users like yourself can find it. This is also covered in this tutorial:
http://help.surveygizmo.com/help/article/link/fix-other-when-randomizing
I hope this helps!
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— Nicolasweiser on 12/16/2015
I have a series of options that I want to randomize, but I want to keep "Other, please specify" fixed at the bottom of the list of options. How do I do that? Thanks.
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 07/08/2015
@Johanna: Thanks for taking a look at our documentation! We don't have a built-in feature to set this up but we do have an example script for how to do this:
http://help.surveygizmo.com/help/article/link/maintaining-randomization-order
I hope this helps!
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— Johanna on 07/08/2015
Is there a way to choose the same randomization order for answers as they were ordered in a question before?
For example if I have two questions with randomized answer order with exactly the same set of answers, I want the order of the answers to be the same in both questions.
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 06/29/2015
L.cowen: Thanks for taking a look at our documentation! You can indeed randomize the slider list row headers! If you head over to the Layout tab of your Slider List question you will see the option to Randomize options under Option Sorting. This will randomize the row headers of your Slider List question.
Thanks for the great question! I've updated the documentation accordingly.
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— L.cowen on 06/29/2015
Is it possible to randomise the order of the answer options in a slider list question?
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 06/09/2015
@Brittany: Thanks for taking a look at our documentation! We do not have this functionality available out of the box but If you have someone on your team that is fluent with custom scripting or JavaScript they might be able to build this for you. Another idea would be to check out one of the websites below. These websites have developers available that can build these features for you.
www.odesk.com
www.rentacoder.com
www.guru.com
I hope this helps!
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— Brittany on 06/08/2015
Is there a way to connect two answers to float in the randomization together without fixing them in place?
Admin
— Bri Hillmer on 04/09/2015
@John: Indeed! I'm sorry this isn't more clear! I will be sure to update the documentation accordingly.
Thanks for taking a look at our documentation and leaving a comment!
Bri
Documentation Coordinator/Survey Sorceress
SurveyGizmo Customer Support
— John on 04/09/2015
Does this mean that the answers ( multiple choice in my case) will show up in different orders for each respondent?