track qual

There are many instances where respondents may qualify for more than one quota group/bucket, but only get assigned to a single quota group. This can occur in cases where qualifying conditions for each quota group are not mutually exclusive, and:

• The quota variable is a single-select (no maxgroups tag), or
• The quota variable has already reached maximums for certain buckets.

In these circumstances, it is sometimes useful to know all of the buckets that a respondent could have qualified for if these above restrictions were removed.

The track qual tag automates the creation of a multi-select survey variable which does just that, tracking all quota buckets for which a respondent could have qualified.

Example

In the following example, respondents indicate all of the states that they have visited, and are then asked follow-up questions about one of them.

1. To which of these states have you been?
type: checkbox
columns: 5
optsfrom: system.states

STATE. One assigned state
type: quotas
track_qual: y
optsfrom: system.states { if anyChecked($Q1,[id]) }

showtext: STATE_INTRO
text: We have some questions about your visit to $QSTATE_text.
 
#Survey Continues Here

QSTATE will contain the assignment to the one state that they are asked about. Because track qual is defined and set to yes, the survey data will also contain a QSTATE_QUAL qualifying variable, showing all of the respondent's selections.

The track qual tag will always name the tracking variable Qn_QUAL, where 'n' is the originating variable's ID, and it will be listed immediately preceding the variable upon which it is defined.