Survey Logic Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide

Survey Logic/Branching for EMA and ESM

Three Logic Functions You Need to Know

There are several logic functions you can use to manage the flow of your ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and experience sampling method (ESM) survey flow. The three logic functions are:
Skip Logic: Participants skip to another specific question based on their response to the current question.
Jump Logic: Participants jump to a specific question.
Display Logic: The current question is displayed when participants respond in a specific way to a previous question.

Before we tackle the different logic functions, it is important to know that all the logic applied will be disabled when you decide to randomize your survey questions.
Randomize and Logic buttons

When toggling the logic button while your survey questions are in random order, you will receive this prompt, and you can click 'Ok' to proceed.
Logic pop-up

When you click the "Randomize questions" button while logic functions are applied, you will receive this prompt, and you can click 'Ok' to proceed.
Randomization of questions Pop-up


Skip Logic

The skip logic function allows you to have participants skip forward to another part of the survey when they responded to a specific option in the current question. 
As an example, you can implement skip logic in a "Multiple Choice Question" where participants select one option out of multiple options.
Skip logic sample

logo of document"Logic" does not display if there are no other questions in the survey or if the multiple choice question is the last question in the survey (as there must be something to skip forward to). You must add more questions before being allowed to enable the skip logic function.

In this example, SKIP logic will be applied to question 2. The logic is set to where, from question 2, it will skip to question 5, IF RESPONSE to question 2 is watching TV / movies. Otherwise, the questions will be in order.
Skip logic sample


You can also skip to a block of questions as well. As seen below, you can choose the specific block of questions to skip forward to by selecting "Block".
The first question in the block represents the entire block. In this example, it is question 7.
A Black box enclosing an add logic option

You can also randomize the questions with in the block.
Randomization of questions in a block
logo of information
In general, it is recommended that "Forced Response" be enabled with "Skip Logic" so that participants will need to respond to the question.

Jump Logic

For instance, if participants encounter an instruction question, they can skip ahead to a designated section of the survey.

For example, placing the instruction question after a question block allows participants to advance to a different survey section after completing that block, as illustrated below.


Display Logic

Another way to manage the flow within the survey is by using the "Display Logic" function. The display logic function displays certain questions based on participants' responses to previous questions in the survey. 

This is particularly useful when you have a set of questions that only needs to be answered if participants encountered a specific event (e.g., ate a meal) or had an interaction (e.g., interacted with a friend). Otherwise, the questions will not be displayed.

For the first illustration, you may only want to ask the time when a participate ate a meal, but only if they did eat a meal previously. To implement this, select the "Add Logic" function to the question that is optionally displayed. Then, create the "Display if" condition to display the question.

Display Logic condition


There may be occasions when you want to apply "Display Logic" to a group of questions. For example, you may ask whether participants met with a friend in the past two hours. If they answered 'yes', you then display multiple questions associated with their interaction.

In this case, you should apply "Add Logic" to Question Groups or Groups.

Display logic for groups


For further inquiries, please reach out to john@expiwell.com



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