Hi there,


I have 4 radio button questions (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) with each 4 answer possibilities (A1, A2, A3, A4).

Now I would like to sum e.g.:


sum(Q1_A4, Q2_A4, Q3_A1, Q4_A4)


I do get an error notice "undefined variable". What do I do wrong? Any hint is appreciated.


Petteri

You get this error, because there is no such thing as Q1_A1, Q1_A2, etc.

As you have a single choice question (radio button), you can access the question only via Q1 with the result being A1, A2, A3, etc., which you can also not add, because they are not numbers, but strings.

Sum does not make any sense here. What exactly are you trying to do? I think you don't really want to sum here anyway, but rather count, correct?

Hello Holch,

and thank you for the quick response.

I try to do following. I have 4 single questions with those 4 options. Each option is characteristic for one “style”. If the respondent choose e.g. in question 1 option 3, in question 2 option 1, in question 3 option 4 and in question 4 option 2, then “style 1“ gets the most “points”. The same method goes for the other 3 styles.

As you wrote, somehow I should count, how many “points” each style gets. How often option 1, option 2, option 3 and option 4 is chosen. Could I explain my problem?

Petteri

Maybe you can have a look at www.limesurvey.org/manual/Assessments

And then sum(Q1.valueNAOK,Q2.valueNAOK,Q3.valueNAOK)

Hello Denis,

and thanks for the message. I had already enabled assement modus. What i'm looking for is something like in the attached picture, where each answer option goes to specific "bucket" (blue, green... in my image) and then the sum for each bucket/color is counted.

Is this possible with radio buttons oder should I take an other approach with orher question type?


BR,

Petteri

Hi, Petteri,
you do it exactly as you would explain it.
"if an object goes to bucket 1, increase the sum of bucket 1 by 1"
"if an object goes to bucket 3, increase the sum of bucket 3 by 1".

"if an object goes to bucket 1" means "if the code of the object is "A1"

I use your example of the first post

I have 4 radio button questions (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) with each 4 answer possibilities (A1, A2, A3, A4).

Create 4 questions of type equation (sumA1, sumA2,...)
The above translated to an equation:
sumA1:
{sum(if(Q1=="A1",1,0),if(Q2=="A1",1,0),if(Q3=="A1",1,0),if(Q4=="A1",1,0))}
...
sumA3:
{sum(if(Q1=="A3",1,0),if(Q2=="A3",1,0),if(Q3=="A3",1,0),if(Q4=="A3",1,0))}

Joffm


Please, read the manual about the if-statement, implemented functions and the question types

Hi Joffm,

great, thank you so much. That did the job.

I'll dive a bit deeper in this if-statement.

BR,

Petteri

The IF statements are similar to Excel...


You can also use nested IF statements to achieve IF ELSE (line breaks inserted for clarity)...

Hi Tony,

yes, I noticed the similarity to excel, although == are for me not so familiar.

I will also test your solution, thank you.

Cherrs,

Petteri

Hi again,

I stil have one problem. The function sums only 3 out of 4 questions. The first one is left out. I think, I should have everything right and I can't see the mistake. Would you find the mistake in the following line:

sum(if(q1 == "A1", 1, 0), if(q2 == "A3", 1, 0), if(q3 == "A4", 1, 0), if(q4 == "A3", 1, 0))

BR,

Petteri

Sorry,nor can we see it without your survey, or better these questions and the equations.
So, please provide it as *.lss

Joffm

Hi Joffm,

enclosed you'll the questions as lsq-file.

Thank you,

Petteri

Please always provide a LSS file. This makes it just so much easier for the helpers here in the forum. If you provide only a lsq file, we as the helpers can not just import it to our system, but need to create a survey first, then a question group and then we can import it into our survey. If we are unlucky, your lsq is not in the language we have created the survey in and thus can not be imported, so more work for us.

So, please create a copy of your survey, delete all unnecessary questions and question groups and just leaf the parts that are necessary to understand you problem.

I'm sorry for my mistake! The difference and difficulties with lsq-file was not known for me.

Enclosed trhe lss-file.

BR,

Petteri

Hi, petteri,
it's a typical "GIGO" (Garbage in - Garbage out) error, which nobody of us would have found without seeing your survey.

Your codes in question q4 are °1°, "2", "3", "4", but in the equation you compare with "A1", "A2",...
So, either you change your equation accordingly:
Bucket 1: sum(if(q4 == 4, 1, 0), if(q5 == "A4", 1, 0), if(q6 == "A1", 1, 0), if(q7 == "A4", 1, 0))

or you change the codes of question q4.

Joffm