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Understand Ranking Question Data in Reports
Understand Ranking Question Data in Reports

How the Ranking question type in surveys & forms should be interpreted in the reports.

Tess O'Brien avatar
Written by Tess O'Brien
Updated this week

The EngagementHQ Survey tool has a Ranking question type that allows participants to rank the options you provide in order of their preference. You can evaluate the options using an average rank in the Survey Analysis reports to see the average preferred option among your community.

There are a few things you should note about ranking questions:

  • If the question is made mandatory, all options need to be ranked.

  • If the question is NOT mandatory, the respondent can rank as many or as few options as they like.

  • If the user does not rank options logically, for example, they rank three out of eight options with a 1, 3, and 6, then EngagementHQ automatically re-ranks the options to 1, 2, and 3 after the survey is submitted to reflect their order correctly.

  • In the reporting, the number you see is the average ranking. This means that if an option shows a value of 2.36, then on average, this option got ranked in the 2.36th position. The lower the value of the average rank, the more preferred this option is.

The formula used to calculate the ranking averages is Option_rank = total rank/number of votes. The Total rank is the addition of all the ranks received to an option, and Votes are the number of times that rank was selected.

As an example, consider the question:

Please rank the community farms in this area from 1-3 (one being the most preferred)

Two respondents answered this question as follows:

Respondent one: 1. By the Dock, 2. Green Acres, 3. Vertical Soil

Respondent two: 1. Green Acres, 2. Vertical Soil, 3. By the Dock

To calculate the rank for Green Acres, you need to add up the Total Rank (1+2=3) and divide it by the number of Votes (2). So, the calculation is 3/2=1.5.

a ranking question in survey reports

Contact our support team if you need any further assistance via chat or email support@engagementhq.com.

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