Qualtrics - How to Require or Validate the Responses Provided in the Survey

This guide will walk you through the process of requiring and validating data in Qualtrics surveys, ensuring that you collect accurate and complete responses.

Requiring Responses

Requiring responses means making certain survey questions mandatory, ensuring that respondents answer them before they can proceed further. This is essential when you need specific information from all participants.

The response requirements section of the survey builder

 

How to Require Responses:

  1. Log in to Qualtrics: Access your Qualtrics account and open the survey you want to work on.
  2. Edit the Question: Click on the question you want to make mandatory to edit it.
  3. Add Requirements: After enabling Add requirements, the following options become available:
    • Force response: Requires the respondent to answer the question before they can continue the survey.

Adding force response to a question

  • Request response: Alerts the respondent about any unanswered questions but allows the respondent to continue the survey without answering if they choose.

Enabling request response on a question

  1. Save and Test: Save your changes and preview your survey to ensure respondents cannot proceed without answering the required question.

 

Best Practices for Requiring Responses

  • Only make questions mandatory when necessary. Avoid forcing respondents to answer questions that are not relevant to them.
  • Clearly indicate which questions are mandatory by using asterisks or other symbols next to the question text.

 

Data Validation

Data validation ensures that responses meet specific criteria or formats, reducing errors and enhancing data accuracy.

Adding content validation based on email address

After enabling Add validation, the following options become available:

Custom validation: Used to force a certain type of response (for example, making sure a respondent selects the right amount of answer choices in a multi-select question).

Additionally, extra validation options appear under certain circumstances in the Add validation menu:

Content validation: Used to force a certain response based on a certain type of content (such as when you want a respondent to enter a valid email address). This validation is used in questions that allow free response.

 

To Set Content Validation on a Question

  1. Select your question.
    Adding content validation based on email address
  2. Enable Add validation.
  3. Select Content type.
  4. Choose your content type to base the validation on.

 

Question-specific validation: Certain questions have built-in validation options. For example, constant sum questions have an additional option to require the question to total to a specific value.

 

Best Practices for Data Validation:

  • Use data validation when collecting information with specific formats, like email addresses, dates, or numerical values.
  • Craft clear error messages that inform respondents about the required format. For example, if collecting dates, you can specify "Please enter a valid date in MM/DD/YYYY format."
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