A rank order scale’s scores are weighted scores in which items selected first receive a higher value than the next ones in the list. This value is exponential and depends on the number of selections in your rank order scale. In your reports the percentage of all of these values (compared to the total) is shown.
For example:
There are 6 answer options from which your respondents need to select their top 3:
The first selection will receive a value of 36 (6²), the second 25 (5²) and the third 16 (4²). The values per response option are added together for all respondents and subsequently the percentages are calculated, which you also see in your chart.
4 comments
Join the conversationafiq - May, 2019
i dont understand at all about the calculation. Does anyone has more explaination about this?
Gert Van Dessel - May, 2019
I think it is explained very clearly in the article.
I will take another example:
Let’s say you have 8 items and you ask the respondent to give a top 3.
As there are 8 items, the 1st choice will get a weight of 64 (8²), the 2nd 49 (7²) and the 3rd 36 (6²).
If you add the weighted scores per item for all respondents, you wil get a total per item.
If you divide the total per item by the overall total, you will get percentages per item that ad up to 100%.
Carole - May, 2018
In my survey I have 4 items to be ranked – I want to show my client the exact calculation for the weighting. Could you please confirm my math below?
Rank #1 = 16, Rank #2 = 9, Rank #3 = 4, Rank #4 =1
Example for Choice A (32×16)=512 + (25×9)=225 + (15×4)=60 + (12×1) =12 Total for Choice A = 809
Thanks,
Carole
Nadia De Vriendt - May, 2018
hi Carole, yes, that’s exactly how it works! :-)