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Qualtrics Information Environment

Department​

Political Science

Summary​

The researchers had created a Qualtrics survey to probe the participant’s voting preferences. However, the way this information needed to be displayed and the data the researcher needed to collect was not possible in a standard survey. The Research Software Programming team was able to help create a custom information environment embedded in the Qualtrics survey using Javascript and custom HTML.

Key Benefits to the Lab​

  • Enabled the researchers to supply information in a non-standard format that allowed them to collect the data they need for their study.
  • Recorded data that is not traditionally made available in a Qualtrics survey and made the data easily accessible for the lab.
  • Helped the lab convey the information more easily in a set of custom figures.

Details​

The researchers had already created a survey to collect information about a participant’s voting preferences. However, they needed to link the way a participant voted to the information the participant received about which positions a hypothetical candidate for office supported. The researchers approached our group with the idea of displaying information about the candidates and their opinions on certain key issues in a series of dialog windows.

Our team created the environment for the researchers and made it accessible from within a question in the Qualtrics survey. The environment was structured in a series of layers that a participant needed to navigate in order to view the information on each candidate’s opinions. We were also able to record the time spent in the various layers, which parts of the environment the participants explored, and offer a place for the participant to take notes. The recorded data were saved and made available in the standard Qualtrics output files.

Eventually the researchers reevaluated their survey and decided to display the information on a candidate’s position in figures instead. The bars on the plots were to be toggled on and off to display a candidate’s feelings on an issue on a 1-10 scale. Our team reworked the environment to instead show a set of dynamic bar plots in random candidate and issue order while retaining the ability to record notes, again recording features for the Qualtrics output files.