16 stimuli in the survey

Question

Hello, dear support team,

I would like to make a survey that should include 16 different stimuli and one (same) question for each stimulus. I planned to use an embedded site for each stimulus. Each stimulus should be shown for a limited time (like 10s) and then be closed automatically. Moreover, it would be great if all stimuli could be shown in random order.

I did not find a similar situation like it so I would like to ask you here. There is a template I found called Selective Exposure Timing. However, this one seems not very suitable for me because it collects timing data that I do not really need and it is only for 1 stimulus as I understand.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Bests

Comments

> I planned to use an embedded site for each stimulus.

Could you go a bit in detail about that?

In general, embedding a site via <iframe> is not different from using an image as stimulus. But only as long as you do not need any information from the embedded page.

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thanks for the quick response!

As for the website, I plan to build some simple static web pages, which include some texts, pictures, and animations. They are only for viewing as stimuli. But I did not work them out yet. Is it ok to use the iframe to reach these sites?

Moreover, if I randomize the order of these sites (stimulus), how can I know which answer belongs to which stimulus when I analyze data since the question is always the same?

Thanks again!

Best

Answer 1

Is it ok to use the iframe to reach these sites?

You will have some limitations, specifically you may encounter responsiveness issues if someone is doing the survey on a mobile device.

Possibly, it may be a better solution to just use the HTML pages as questionnaire pages. You can simply use HTML code as questionnaire contents, and there is a "presenter" layout that can be used for single pages, having few elements on itself.

Each stimulus should be shown for a limited time (like 10s) and then be closed automatically.

Independently from the solution you choose for the pages to embed them. Timing should be easy to accomplish: Timer: Go Onto Next Page Automatically. You may only use a very short JavaScript for the timers, as you won't need all the PHP in your case:

<script type="text/javascript">
window.setTimeout(SoSciTools.submitPage, 10000);
</script>

Moreover, it would be great if all stimuli could be shown in random order.

Please follow this manual: Rotation of Question Blocks

You could do it more elegantly by using loopToPage(), but the "simple" version explained in that manual is more straight-forward.

Comments

>  I want the questions within the block not to be rotated.

That makes the code even easier :) Leave this part out:

  // Jeden einzelnen Block in sich mischen
  for ($i=0; $i<count($blocks); $i++) {
    shuffle($blocks[$i]);
  }

> With this code, however, it could be like A1→C1→A2, which is not what I want.

I am quite convinced that this was not even possibly with the above code (that is to be removed). The code was explicitly created to have the pages within a block stick to one another.

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thanks for the answer. I solved the first problem by removing the code.

However, I still have the second problem. More precisely, sometimes the question would just be skipped so that two stimuli show without a question in between. Since all the questions are the same, I am not sure if the order is A1→C1→A2 or A1→C1→C2, or A1→C1→D2. But what I am sure of is that A2 was missing.

Thanks!

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Have you tried starting the questionnaire in debug mode (yellow button)? You will see the page order in the debug information, and you will see the codes of the pages and questions.

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When I run the questionnaire again, the problem is gone, I don't know why actually.

Here I have another question regarding a warning:
 
Please note that the random values created via random() or shuffle() will not automatically be stored in the data set. If necessary, you may use put() to store them.

Can you explain shortly what random values are? And if I need to store them, where should I put () exactly?

Thanks!

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> Can you explain shortly what random values are?

What this warning tells you: You won't be able to see the order in which the pages (blocks) have been shown, in your dataset.

If you need their order for analyses, you will need additional code. Or you may also use a random generator instead the PHP code with shuffle().