Qualtrics Blog

With Qualtrics, sometimes its best to go back to the basics. If some of you are having trouble getting started, this post is for you.

It is simple to create, delete or move questions with our tool. Here is a quick overview.

Add a question by clicking on the green Create New Question button at the bottom of each block. This adds a question at the end of a block. As a second option, you may click one of the add a question buttons at the top right or bottom right of a question. This adds a question directly before or after the question on which you selected the add button.

To delete a question click on the red delete question button located on the right side of a question when you hover over it with the mouse. This will move the question to the trash section from which you can move the question back into a question block if you change your mind. To delete questions permanently you can select the delete button while they are in the trash section.

To change the order of a question, hover over the question with your mouse. On the left side two arrows will appear pointing up and down. Click on one of the arrows and the question will move one space. If the question needs to go farther or to another block, select the question and then click on the move icon in the question menu to the right of the question. The question will be highlighted blue and will follow your mouse. Move your mouse to where you would like the question to be placed and click.

Researchers have forever struggled with measuring that one single concept that provides the silver bullet for describing, understanding, or predicting that all important concept of interest. For survey researchers, concepts must be identified, understood, with relationships identified and measured.

Metatheory, the investigation of investigation, is a critical part of being a superior researcher who understands not only what is being measured, but why.

Metatheory may be broadly defined as the theory of investigation. In survey research, metatheory gives understanding and interpretation to that all important process of reducing abstract concepts to observation and measurement.

Surveys are conducted with the goal of providing an operational interpretation of the concepts of interest. Surveys apply measurement, or the “assignment of numbers to respondents to represent amounts or degrees of a property (concept) possessed by all of the respondents.” This measurement provides interpretation of the properties of persons, cognitions, behaviors, emotions, events, objects, relationships, and many other “concepts” of interest to the researcher. Metatheory is a prized resource for preparing a well designed, organized, and meaningful survey.

Modeling for Completeness Metatheory involves the organization of the concepts being investigated into models that represent relationships. We are all familiar with the use of models, whether model airplane kits, drawings of buildings, descriptive text and flowcharts, or icons on a computer screen. The most fundamental issue in modeling is the convergence between the model and the reality it is designed to represent. This applies to both the process being modeled as well as the components that are part of that process. Models are intended to represent reality.

The most exceptional and powerful surveys are not hodge-podge lists of questions, but are questions built around a model of what is being investigated. Survey questions are most effective when they focus on concepts that model a process or components and confidently represent reality on all significant issues.

You can insert a video into your survey through the Edit Survey section. Click on the text of the question that you would like to insert the video in. After clicking on the question's text, you have the option of clicking on Rich Text Editor, which will be directly above the question's text.

When the Rich Text Editor is brought up, you can click on the filmstrip icon (it is on the top row, the third icon from the left). This is the "insert a video" option. you will then need to type in your video URL. You can also specify the media type and the video's width and height. You can also preview your video at this time.

The video will appear in your survey, looking something like this:

This is an effective research tool that is often used to hold attention of respondents, gather feedback in subsequent questions, or gather opinions about the content.

Every respondent learns differently. Some can digest information simply after reading it. Others are more visual and some learn after hearing it.

With Qualtrics, we try to give you the right tools to reach each respondent. Because of this, we have an audio feature.

You can insert audio into your survey through the Edit Survey section. Click on the text of the question that you would like to insert the audio in. After clicking on the question's text, you have the option of clicking on Rich Text Editor, which will be directly above the question's text.

When the Rich Text Editor is brought up, you can click on the filmstrip icon (it is on the top row, the third icon from the left). This is the "insert a video" option. Although it is the video icon, it allows you to insert audio as well. You will then need to type in the URL for the audio that you want to insert.

It's as easy as that. You can check to make sure the audio was inserted correctly, simply by previewing your survey.

Purpose of Employee Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews are designed to predict behavior or to explain the reasons for past behavior. A classic example of behavioral interviews is where an employee made a poor decision and then made a worse decision by lying or failing to report the mistake and repercussions of the initial decision.

During behavioral interviews, questions are presented about how the employee acted or reacted in a specific job-related situation. In many situations, employees do not recognize the source of the behavioral problem and how decisions could or should have been made differently.
Behavioral interviews can be instructive, diagnostic, and insightful for both the interviewer, manager, and the employee.
Employee Behavioral Interview Questions

Behavioral interview questions may be asked in personal interview, phone, or questionnaire form and focus on specific decisions or challenges that were faced. Employee Behavioral Interview questions that are general in nature may be used in employee job interview questionnaires. These questions would provide insights about behavior in future employment situations. In general behavioral situations, we might include questions like:

• Describe a time that you were challenged or put under pressure.
• Tell me about a time when you took it upon yourself to accomplish a task on the job, without being asked.
• Which accomplishment on the job gave you more satisfaction than any other?
• How would you handle it if a coworker (or subordinate) was not pulling his or her fair share of the load?
• What was a major obstacle you have overcome?
• Depending on the initial questions and answers, secondary behavioral interview questions might include:
• How did you deal with it?
• How did you go about achieving it?
• What was the outcome?
• What were you thinking at the time?
• How did it make you feel?
• What did you say or do?
• What are some examples?
• How did you know there was a problem?

Employee behavioral interview questions of a specific nature would focus on understanding past behavior. In specific behavioral situations, we might include questions like:

• Describe the situation in which the challenge took place.
• Describe your assessment of the situation and challenge.
• What were the risks involved?
• What alternative courses of action could have been taken?
• How did you deal with it?
• What did you say or do?
• How did you go about achieving it?
• What was the outcome?
• What were you thinking at the time?
• How did it make you feel?
• What are some examples?
• How did you know there was a problem?
• What could have been done better?

We hope these suggestions can get your mind turning. Maybe conducting behavioral interview surveys is the answer for you!

Qualtrics has a couple of simple, little-known shortcuts that can be helpful when working with the Survey Flow in Qualtrics, especially when needing to copy branching or something similar.

When an item in the Survey Flow is selected (outlined blue), you can then Ctrl+click (or Shift+click) on any of the "Add a New Element Here" buttons and it will create an exact copy in that location of what was selected. This is very useful, powerful tool when needing to replicate a large branch of elements or logic where minor edits might be needed to then complete the setup.

Smaller, but still quite useful shortcuts are the up/down arrows on your keyboard. When an element in the flow is selected, if you press up or down on your keyboard, the item will move one space up or down. This means it will enter and exit branches and randomizers as well.

Sampling is the process of selecting a subset of units from the population. After choosing a sampling method, the next step is to decide how many people should be sampled.

We use sampling formulas to determine how many to select. It is important to select the right amount of people because it is based on the characteristics of this sample that we make inferences about the population.

The most common method of sample size determination is based on proportions. For example, suppose we are preparing for the winter Olympics and are interested in estimating "the proportion of out of state skiers that took at least one overnight trip." We might use this number of people that would consider traveling to the Olympics.

In this case, the sample size is estimated using proportions. sp = (p/(1-p)/ n) where p is the proportion of "out of state skiers that took at least one overnight trip". The most conservative number for this proportion is .50 and if the desired accuracy was .05 and the formula would appear as: (Number of Standard Errors)^{2 * ((proportion)*(1-proportion)) / (Accuracy)}

Using this formula explained above, the following sample sizes will result. If you are curious how your sample size will match up, take a look at this table.

Remember to carefully select your sample size to ensure a representative study.

You can see that as the sample size increases, the percentage of error decreases. Hope this  explanation will help you choose the best sample for your research.

As  you read through these posts, it may be helpful for you to speak to a Qualtrics representative. We offer exceptional customer support, complete with Qualtrics training.

Free access to the Qualtrics Training Team comes with every Qualtrics license. Qualtrics trainings are personalized webinars that can address anything from getting started in Qualtrics to advanced panel management. These trainings are offered at any time to any client:

Basic Training- Learn everything you need to know to get started and write a basic survey. In 1 hour you will learn everything from creating a survey to graphing the results.
Advanced Training- This training typically lasts 1 hour and covers advanced features within the Qualtrics tool. Advanced survey management, creation and analysis are specifically taught in this training.
Administration Training- This 30 minute training introduces brand administrators to the options that they have. This training is a must for new brand administrators that want to succeed.
Customized Training- Find out anything else you want to know about Qualtrics. Our training team is ready to help you learn anything you want to know about the Qualtrics Research Suite.

Email training@qualtrics.com  to schedule your personal training.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every time your survey was completed, or maybe every time a respondent answered a question in a specific way, you could get an email notification? For example, every time someone responded with a suggestion to your feedback link on your website, you would get an email telling you about their suggestion. In Qualtrics it is easy to set this up using email triggers.

To set up an email trigger, go to Advanced Options dropdown menu in the Edit Survey Tab, and select “Email Triggers.” Here you can specify which email you want the messages to be sent to, the subject of the messages, what text you want in the body of the email, and you can even set up filtering conditions. The filtering conditions will set up the trigger to only send when a condition you set is met. To set up a condition, click on “Add a Condition.” Here you can specify if you want your condition to be based off of a question in your survey, embedded data, or even a quota. Just choose one of these options, and specify the condition in the corresponding drop down boxes. You can even click on the plus sign to the right to add “and if” or “or if” criteria to your condition. To set up multiple triggers, you can click on “Add Another Trigger” at the bottom of the window, and follow the same process.  Email triggers are a great and easy way to receive automatic notifications from your survey.

You’ve done it!  Your feedback survey is created, there is a prominent link on your website, and now you are collecting data.  What next?  Why not use these results to automatically create a panel for future mailings?  There are two easy ways to do this in Qualtrics:

1.       Setting it up ahead of time: In the Advanced Options menu on the Edit Survey Page, you will see the Panel Triggers feature.  Simply select a panel, and select which answer represents their first name, last name, and email address.  Each time a respondent answers the questions and meets the conditions you specify, the will be added to the panel.

2.       Setting it up after the fact: Forgot to set up a panel trigger before distributing the survey?  You can still automatically add panel members.  In your Panel Members screen on the Panels page, select “Import/Update panel members” and follow the prompts.

Time to pat yourself on the back - with one simple step you’ve just built a large client database that you can call upon for later market research.  Happy Qualtrics-ing!