Randomize-Between Groups (Questionnaire Files)

QuickInfo

All items sharing the same RBG value define a group to be kept together. If multiple groups are defined, then MediaLab will present the groups of items in a random order.

Value

Any positive integer value

Purpose

You may wish to randomly order and present entire groups of items in your Questionnaire File (e.g., randomizing whether demographic or personality questions come first in a uestionnaire File ). To do this, assign the same RBG value to all of the items you want to keep together. For example, if you have five sets of ten items, and you want to randomize the order in which these 5 groups of items are presented, then assign each group a different number in the RBG field and make sure all the items within each group share the same number for that group. The items within each group will all stay together, but the groups themselves will be randomly ordered. Items assigned a 0 or none will not move. Note that all items within a group must be sequential in the Questionnaire File.

Example

In your Questionnaire File, you want to present 1) an instruction screen, 2) five scale response items, 3) three fill-in-the-blank items, and 4) a final Word document. Whether the scale responses come first or the fill-in-the-blanks come first is to be random. Assign an RBG value of 0 or none to the instruction screen and Word document to keep them where they are, a 1 to each of the five scale response items, and a 2 to each of the five fill-in-the-blank items. When MediaLab runs that Questionnaire File, the instruction screen will always come first, followed randomly by either all 5 of the scale response items or the three fill-in-the-blank items, and always end with the Word document item. To randomize the order of the items within each group, see Randomize Within Groups.

Note

For ease of analysis, variables will be written to the data file in the order the occur in the Questionnaire File, not in the randomized order in which they are presented while running MediaLab.