quotabase

Different survey projects call for different sampling techniques and quota structures. For example, a sampling strategy may involve allowing respondents other than "completed" respondents to count towards certain quotas. This is most commonly allowed for click balance quotas (CBQs) used in representative sampling methodologies. In these cases, all respondents who complete a basic set of demographic questions count towards specific demographic quotas, even if they will ultimately be screened out of the survey. One of the ways to accommodate this sampling approach is with the quotabase tag.

Syntax

By default, quotas counts are only incremented in the Quota Manager by completes. Thus, the standard criteria to count towards a quota bucket (group) is that the status of a respondent is "complete." The quotabase tag allows you to manipulate this criteria, and as such, accepts a logical statement as an input: 

QUOTA. This is a quota
type: quotas
quotabase: anyChecked($Qn,X)
1. Option 1
2. Option 2

Example

In the following click-balancing scenario, the sampling goal is to "balance" the survey starts to match Census data for the quotas QAGE, QGEN, and QAGEGEN. In order to qualify for these quotas, and thus be considered a valid click-in, respondents must finish the whole demographic section and punch the QDEMO variable. Notice QDEMO uses cvalue; it will be processed when the page it is on is submitted, thus signifying that the demographics section is complete. All three of the quotas have the quotabase tag specified with the condition that QDEMO be punched '1'; so all respondents that finish all three of the demographic questions will count towards these click balance quotas (CBQs).

1. What is your gender?
type: radio
quotas: y
1. Male
2. Female
 
GEN. QUOTA | Gender (CBQ)
type: quotas
quotabase: anyChecked($QDEMO,1)
optsfrom: Q1
 
2. What is your age?
type: pulldown
prompt: >>
series: 18..74
75. 75 or older

AGEC. QUOTA | Age (completes)
type: quotas
18. 18 - 24 {if ($Q2>=18 and $Q2<=24)}
25. 25 - 34 {if ($Q2>=25 and $Q2<=34)}
35. 35 - 44 {if ($Q2>=35 and $Q2<=44)}
45. 45 - 54 {if ($Q2>=45 and $Q2<=54)}
55. 55 - 64 {if ($Q2>=55 and $Q2<=64)}
65. 65 and above {if $Q2>=65}

AGE. QUOTA | Age (CBQ)
quotabase: anyChecked($QDEMO,1)
type: quotas
18. 18 - 24 {if ($Q2>=18 and $Q2<=24)}
25. 25 - 34 {if ($Q2>=25 and $Q2<=34)}
35. 35 - 44 {if ($Q2>=35 and $Q2<=44)}
45. 45 - 54 {if ($Q2>=45 and $Q2<=54)}
55. 55 - 64 {if ($Q2>=55 and $Q2<=64)}
65. 65 and above {if $Q2>=65}
 
setlist: AGEGENLIST
crosslists: QAGE,Q1

AGEGENC. QUOTA | Age-Gender (completes)
type: quotas
optsfrom: AGEGENLIST

AGEGEN. QUOTA | Age-Gender (CBQ)
quotabase: anyChecked($QDEMO,1)
type: quotas
optsfrom: AGEGENLIST

newpage

DEMO. Respondent Finished Demographic screening
type: radio
invisible: y
cvalue: 1
1. True  
 
newpage
 
Survey Continues Here

In this example, in addition to the CBQ quotas created, we've also included regular quotas for each of the above demographic questions which apply to completes only. 

Additional information

• The quotabase tag also accepts the input 'all', which signifies that all records in the survey satisfying a given quota option's criteria will be counted in that quota bucket.
• The quotabase tag will only work with type: quotas. It does not work on questions with a quotas: y tag, which generate a QX_QUOTA quota variable. Attempting to use it will result in a compilation error. For creating quotas inline with a specified quotabase, use the create_quotas tag.
• The quota tracking variable tag can be used to specify the name of a variable for tracking the over quota punches for quotas using quotabase.