passif and failif

Use the passif and failif tags to create attention check variables that can be used in evaluating data. Each question with a pass if/fail if tag generates a tracking variable in the System Fields chapter. The variable is named Qx_ATTN, where x is the original question ID. When the logic specified by the attention flag is met, the _ATTN variable is populated with a value of '1' (passed). When the criteria is not met, the tracking variable is populated with a value of '0' (failed).

• age verification where an age question is repeated near the end of the survey and verified against the response previously entered
• questions requesting the respondent to type in a specific response or enter a specific value.

Syntax

The input for either pass if or fail if can be an option ID, or in more complicated cases, a Boolean expression. If the input evaluates as "true" for pass if, the check is passed. If the input evaluates as "true" for fail if, the check is failed.

# In question or table widget; a table widget needs a Boolean expression
passif: Option ID or Boolean expression

failif: Option ID or Boolean expression

Examples

In the examples below, the showtext widget is included only to help explain the demonstration code; in live surveys these would not be included.

Option ID passif

For simple pass/fail scenarios, Survey Programmers (SPs) need only specify the option ID for which a respondent will pass or fail an attention check. In the example below, selecting '1' will allow them to pass the attention check. 

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Option ID failif

Since pass if is essentially the opposite of fail if, we could rewrite our previous example as shown below, instead using fail if.

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Boolean expression

In this example, assume that the Rodney's Fireworks brand does not exist, and therefore functions as an attention check. As such, anyone that chooses option '990' will trigger the fail if condition.

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String

It is also possible to evaluate a string from a text question as an attention check point. In this example, the attention check is passed when "alabaster" is entered and failed when anything else is entered.

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Table

The following examples illustrates how an attention check can be used within a table to flag unlikely answers, ex: shopping on the moon. The passif could be written the way it is in the table below or as passif: anyChecked($Q5R990,2). Both logic conditions indicate that at Q5, Row 990 (the moon) was selected as 'No' - therefore, the respondent will pass.

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Pass and fail count

It is possible to use the number of attention check passes or fails the respondent triggers to control survey logic such as terminations and skip logic. These counts are contained in the attention_pass_count and attention_fail_count CheatSweep variables. These variables can be used in conjunction with term if, goto, end survey, or any other widget to control survey routing and so forth, see below for examples.

## to set respondents to T (terminate status) - separate widget
set term: attention_fail
condition: $attention_fail_count > 2
text: Attention checks - 2 or more failed

## to set respondents to T (terminate status) - attached to a question widget
termif: $attention_fail_count >= 2 {text: Attention checks | 2 or more attention checks faild}

## to set respondents to B (bad status)
goto: bad
condition: $attention_fail_count > 2

The below example once again uses set conditioned text just to illustrate how the count variables function. In this scenario, not selecting '1' in Q6 would contribute to the attention_fail_count total, possibly leading to the respondent being terminated.

See demo See code Restart demo