HI,

we are creating a limesurvey poll for the first time and have read tutorials and went through this forum but maybe we lack the appropriate vocabulary to find an answer here so we ask here.

We generate a question where we provide a list of software and ask user to rate his skills level on that particular soft ware that would look like:
          0          1          2          3         4
soft1
soft2
soft3
soft4
(user entry1)
(user entry2)
...

We would like to allow the user to add other software name(s) below our list and be able to fill in their skill level as well.

Is it possible?

The easiest way to do this is asking a question before that, if there is any other software besides the one in the predefined list that they have experience with.

You can use a multiple text question. You can then pipe these answers into your array type question via expression manager with something like this {qcode_subquestion}

Hi,
you CAN do this.
There is a javascript workaround.
   



I don't recommend it, although I've heard this request countless times from unexperienced customers during my 40 years doing opinion and market research.

Why?
You don't get any additional information, but you get a lot more work.
1. Since, as expected, only very few mentions of a particular software appear, you cannot compare them with the predefined software because the bases are too small.
Since the answer options represent a scale, you certainly want to calculate mean values, standard deviations and compare the skills with t-tests, K-tests, ANOVAs.

2. And if a software is really mentioned very often, your pretest was not particularly good.

3. All other software mentioned are in the same two columns of the answer table, and the same software can be in column 1, but also in column 2.
You have to restructure everything in order to be able to calculate a reasonable analysis.

4. Almost no one will enter additional software to say "My skills are really bad".
No, mainly software that is well known and in which the skills are very good to excellent are entered.
But this gives you a bias to the values of the predefined software.

5. And what information gain do you have if 1 person answers: "Freezy - a software to manage the content of my freezer" - very good skills

6. Since your survey has a certain background, the relevant software should all be predefined (pretest).
All others are therefore rather uninteresting and of no significance, but can be listed for the sake of completeness.

So my suggestion is:
No "others" in the array.
After the array, ask a question (multiple short texts) such as: "Is there any other software that has not yet been mentioned in which you have good, very good or excellent skills?"

Joffm

Thank you for your answer. We will consider that option and look into expression manager

Thank you for this very interesting and backed answer!
This gives us matter to think about.
All your points may not be relevant to our context but some definitely are.

Thank you for the file as well.

Joffm wrote:

2. And if a software is really mentioned very often, your pretest was not particularly good.
 

In many survey projects the pretest never happens.But you get surprised faces that a workaround is needed in LimeSurvey for that kind of question style

In many survey projects the pretest never happens.

I know that. Therefore I couldn't resist saying it.

that a workaround is needed in LimeSurvey for that kind of question style

Exactly, but in a commercial tool I worked with for a long time it took about 10 years till it was implemented.
Before there was nothing at all.

Joffm

To be honest, I don't see it that problematic to ask for additional answer options within the survey, as long as you are aware of the problems that might come with it.

Yes, ideally we have covered it all before, but even in a pre-test, you often don't find everything. Maybe I don't see it as such a big deal, because I do a lot of qualitative research and we are used to be surprised during fieldwork and work with small samples frequently.

Of course, you need to be aware of the consequences and possibly might need to "recode" some of the answers (surprisingly many type an answer item that already exists again, etc.).

But I don't think that it is such a big deal and at least you make sure that you are not forgetting something. But you need to be cautious during analysis, of course.

In this case, during my first read I actually assumed it would be something like an online CV form or something anyway, where quantitative analysis wouldn't be that important. LS is used in so many different ways, it is not always traditional surveys.