Introduction

Qualtrics survey software allows you to create online questionnaires for your research. It provides various question types, branch logic and the possibility to export results to statistical software, such as SPSS. It can also be used in conjunction with other online platforms such as SONA and JATOS.

General Information

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Availability, Support and Use

• Qualtrics is available at www.leidenuniv.eu.qualtrics.com for all FSW staff and students with a ULCN-account
• Qualtrics may only be used for academic research and course evaluations, not for internal purposes (e.g. staff-outings etc).
• Support for all things account related, including transferring ownership of surveys, please contact beheer@library.leidenuniv.nl or check out their Qualtrics support page.
• For all technical and research related questions (i.e. how to link from and to Qualtrics with other online software, use videos or randomization), see below and / or contact us at labsupport@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Tutorials

We have made some tutorial videos to demonstrate often-needed features of Qualtrics.

Online Research Intro

If you are completely new to online research, this video (through not specific to Qualtrics) may provide some helpful insights before you start.

Tutorial 1: The basics

An introduction to the basics of using Qualtrics, for those with very little to no experience.

Tutorial 2: Linking To and From

Explains how to set up Qualtrics to link to other online parts (including other Qualtrics surveys), and how to receive information from preceding parts. For more information see also:

• Qualtrics Passing Information via Query Parameters

Hint: while you can use a randomly generated number as participant id to share across surveys/tasks, Qualtrics also generates a unique response id for each survey respondent. You can use the response id generated in the very first survey (e.g. the informed consent survey) as your participant id going forward. The response id can be accessed as an embedded variable with the name "ResponseID".

Tutorial 3: Randomization

Note: not mentioned in the video is the option to save the order of the item presentation in your data-file. If you'd like to implement that, please contact labsupport@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Multi-session Setup

Qualtrics Multi-Session Setup

There are many ways to implement multi-session setups in Qualtrics, above is an example of a common method that ensures no personal information (other than subject nr) is stored in the data together with the actual survey answers. 

You will need to create the following surveys: 

1. Informed Consent Survey: this is the first survey participants receive where they give informed consent to participating in the study. This is also when name and email address are collected and stored in the Contact List.  
2. Session 1 Survey: this is the first survey participants fill out after giving informed consent. 
3. Helper Survey: after participants filled out Session 1 Survey, this survey sends the email with a link to Survey Session 2-X at the specified date with a workflow. In the background, it retrieves the email information per participant from the Informed Consent Survey through the Contact List. Participants do not have to fill out anything in this survey. 
4. Session 2-X Survey: these are the following surveys participants fill out. They receive an email containing the link to each of them (sent via the Helper Survey). 

Find below an example of this implementation:

1. Create a new contact list, make sure to give it an informative name so that you'll be able to find it back later. You do not need to add anything to the list. Important: contact lists can generally not be accessed/collaborated on in the same way as surveys. So make sure the contact list is created by a staff member in the project, not by a student member. With the exception of step 7, all other steps can be done by any survey collaborator.
2. In the Informed Consent survey, collect name and email, and generate a subject number. For example, use a random number generator in the Survey Flow (make sure the range is large enough to minimize the chance of duplicate numbers).
   
3. Add a Workflow to the Informed Consent survey to add contact details to the previously created contact list. Go to Workflows - Create a workflow - Browse Templates - select template "Start a workflow when a survey response is received or updated" - Get Started. Give it a name and then click on the + to add a task. Use the “XM Directory” Task for this. In the Contact List field, select the contact list you created in step 1. Name fields are required, but you can use the email address for all fields if needed—use the piped-text option from the email question (or a fixed name). Alternatively, you can select the piped text option of the first and last name survey question. In the “External Reference ID” field, refer to the subject number embedded data field. 
   
   
4. In the “End of Survey” element of the Informed Consent survey, use the redirect option to send the participant to the Session 1 survey. Use the distribution link of that survey (use the anonymous survey link) and add the subject number as a query parameter. For example:
   www.surveydag1.nl?subjectnr=${e://Field/subjectnr}
   
5. In the Session 1 survey, at the top of the Survey Flow, add an Embedded Data element and define subjectnr as a variable (leave the value empty!). This captures the value passed in the link.
   
6. At the end of the Session 1 survey, again use the End of Survey element to redirect to the Helper survey. Pass the subject number along again (see step 4). Additionally consider also sending a session value, to help select the appropriate workflow later on, see also step 10.
7. In the Helper survey, capture the subject number again in the Survey Flow (see step 5). Then add a Contact List Authenticator to the Survey Flow. Select the correct contact list. Choose “External Reference” as the Authentication Field. Select “Pre-fill” and enter subjectnr in the adjacent field. Go to Options and increase the number of maximum authentication events (for example to 10) and tick the option Allow authenticating respondents to retake authenticated section. Important: only the person who has created the contact list will be able to set up this step. Afterwards it will remain functional for all collaborators, as long as they don't try to edit the authentication element.
   
8. Add an Embedded Data element below the authenticator and create an email variable, e.g., subjectemail, and fill it with the email address from the contact list.
   
9. Go to Survey Options and deselect Allow respondents to finish later. 
10. Add a Workflow to the Helper survey, with an Email Task. Set the email to be sent after a requested number of days. Use the subject email embedded data for the recipient address. In the body of the email, include a link to the Session 2 study with the subject number as a query parameter.
    Example: www.surveydag2.nl?subjectnr=${e://Field/subjectnr}
    Tip: do this in the URL editor (see screenshots below).
    
    

11. For the surveys on the following days, you can do one of two things:

    • Option 1: Repeat steps from step 5 onward, so each survey has its own Helper survey and workflow at the end.

    • Option 2: Use the same Helper survey for each session, but add conditions to the workflows. For Option 2:

      a. In the redirect link from the Session survey to the Helper survey (step 6), add an extra variable to indicate which day was just completed. For example:
      www.survey-email.nl?subjectnr=${e://Field/subjectnr}&session=1

      b. In the Helper survey, in the Survey Flow, also add the session embedded data, just like subjectnr (see step 5).

      c. Add a Workflow to the Helper survey for each day, and add a condition to each workflow that checks whether it’s the correct day for that workflow. For example:
      
      

Tips & Examples