Criteria for Usable Respondents

The 'DASHBOARD' - 'Advanced statuses >>' - 'Usable respondents' tab gathers other criteria, according to responses, non-response and missing values in questionnaires, available to 3KA private package users only:

• Non-substantive answers. The respondent answered the question but had chosen standard answers that are marked as invalid (e.g. -97) in the data. The respondent can also define additional categories of non-substantive answers.
• Valid answers. This answer type defines real substantive responses, where the respondent gave an answer that meets any potential conditions (e.g. validation), excluding non-substantive answers.
• Non-response. This category refers to item nonresponse, which serves as a basis for the calculation of the share of questions to which the respondent did not provide an answer, despite the fact that questions were displayed (e.i. it excludes conditions, subsequent questions, break-offs).
• Break-offs. The respondent stopped answering the questions and left the survey at a certain point. Thus, certain answers are missing. The corresponding share is expressed as a percentage of the questionnaire which was not filled out.
• Usable respondents. This includes fully or partially completed questionnaires. By default, it means that the respondent filled out at least 50% of all questions which were displayed. Additionally, the share of questions that were not answered due to a breakoff are also taken into account. Usable responses include substantive, non-substantive and invalid answers ( e.g. - 96 'none of the above', -97 'invalid', etc.).

The above-described usability of respondents complements the analysis of the status of units, which is displayed in the 'DATA' - 'Browse' tab (when paradata is enabled). The technical statuses of the survey completion should also be taken into account:

• completed survey (status 6 – completed survey), which is not necessarily completed in full;
• partially completed (status 5 – partially completed);
• initial break-off (status 3 – click on the introduction, status 4 – entered the first page);
• empty unit, i.e. questionnaire that does not have a single answer (status 5l – partially blank, status 6l – entirely blank).