Questionnaire Items - KL-Psychological-Methodology/ESMira GitHub Wiki

By clicking the "Change" button at the right of an item, you can change its type and settings.

Note: The variable name of an item will be used as a column name in the data file.

Note: Be aware that each item must have a unique variable name within the whole study.

Most items can be set to forced choice (by ticking "Must be filled out") and can have a "pre-filled value" that is shown (and saved) as long as the participant has not entered anything different. Most item types can also have the option of showing a text ("Shown text") above the item. There are several item types to choose from:

List of available items

App usage tracking

Tracks the time (in ms) that either an app or the smartphone in general was active yesterday (creates an additional variable: "X~usageCount" how many times the app was opened / the screen was enabled. -1 if the value was not available).

Binary item

Gives two answers from which one can be chosen. Saves the left option as "0", and the right option as "1".

Compass item

Displays a compass for providing the cardinal direction (beware: this value might be inaccurate depending on the calibration of the smartphone).

Countdown item

Counts down from a predefined timeout value. Will save "1" in the data file when the countdown was finished properly. When this item is set to required, the user will not be able to finish the questionnaire until the countdown has finished.

The visual representation of the countdown depends on the setting of show value. If show value is set, the countdown item will display the remaining number of seconds. Otherwise it will show "Countdown running" for the complete duration of the countdown.

Date input

An item where the participant can input a date.

Duration item

An item displaying two numeric text fields for hours and minutes. The item ensures that minutes are in the range 0 to 59. The result will be saved as the total number of minutes.

Dynamic item

This item has its own pool of sub items and changes every time the questionnaire was filled out. The items can either be ordered (the first item is shown until questionnaire was filled out, then second item, ... when all items have been shown, the list restarts) or randomized (every time an item is picked at random. Each item is only shown once until all items have been shown).

Image

Embeds an image from an external source inside the questionnaire. If loading the video was successful, the item variable will be 1. Otherwise, it will be 0.

Image upload

For selecting and uploading a picture from the phone storage.

Likert scale

A Likert scale with dots. See Wikipedia.

List (multiple choice)

A list where the user can choose several items out of predefined options. The appearance of this item can vary on different smartphones, browsers or operating systems. Additionally, to the usual column, (which will be saved as text (concatenated with ";")) the data file will have one additional column for each item option which will either be empty or have "1" (which will be named: [item name]~[option number]). If the option "allow option other" is checked, ESMira will automatically add an option "other" to the end of the list when displaying it to participants. If thes option is selected, a text field will appear where participants can enter an appropriate response, which is then saved in a column [item name]~other.

List (single choice)

A list where the user can choose one item out of predefined options. The appearance of this item can vary on different smartphones, browsers or operating systems. The item that was chosen will be saved as text in the data file. If the option "allow option other" is checked, ESMira will automatically add an option "other" to the end of the list when displaying it to participants. If thes option is selected, a text field will appear where participants can enter an appropriate response, which is then saved in a column [item name]~other.

List of bluetooth devices

Creates an anonymized list of bluetooth devices (Bluetooth low energy) that are nearby. After pressing a button this item scans for one minute and then saves a list of found hashed device ids and RSSI values in a JSON format.

Note: The device names from iOS and Android are not comparable

Location item

An item capture location data (e.g., GPS). The result will be saved as a H3 index (see https://h3geo.org/). The item allows to set the resolution the index is calculated at (see https://h3geo.org/docs/core-library/restable). Using lower resolutions can be desirable if you want to preserve participant anonymity, as these indices will only indicate a rough area, as opposed to an exact location. In such a situation we recommend a resolution of 9 as a starting point. At that resolution the index's area is small enough to indicate a specific area within a city, while still being large enough to include multiple regular-sized buildings.

Note that the item first tries to obtain the last known location from the Host OS, and only starts an actual scan if that information is not available or older than five minutes. This means that the exact location used for the calculation of the H3 index may technically outdated by up to five minutes.

After a successful scan participants will see a button displaying their the found index at the specified resolution. When clicked this button opens the page https://wolf-h3-viewer.glitch.me/ in a browser, showing the found index (e.g., https://wolf-h3-viewer.glitch.me/?h3=891e33289a3ffff )

Number input

An item where the participant can input a number (positive or negative). You can set if decimal numbers are allowed by ticking "Allow decimals".

Record audio

Record audio and transfer the file to the server.

Share item

Shows a button that opens a link in the browser when pressed. In the url the phrase [USER_ID](/KL-Psychological-Methodology/ESMira/wiki/USER_ID) will be replaced with the participant's user id. Saves "1" when the button was pressed.

Simple text view

Shows text in the questionnaire. No column will be created in the data file for this item.

Take a picture

For capturing photos with the camera.

Text input

An item where the participant can input text.

Time input

An item where the participant can input a time of day. Its value can either be saved in the data file as text (e.g. "02:30") or as accumulated minutes (e.g. "150").

Video

Embeds a webpage with an embedded video from an external source inside the questionnaire. Be aware that the video will be loaded as a frame inside the app (or webpage). That means you can not embed the video directly but must provide a link to a webpage that embeds the video (e.g., for a video on Youtube go to Share and use the Link within the Embed option, such as https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=AA6eDfUqjXZjG4jO). If loading the video was successful, the item variable will be 1. Otherwise, it will be 0.

Visual analogue scale

A scale representing 0 to 100 from left to right. If no default value is used, the scale will initially be empty and when selected, a thumb will appear at the clicked position.

Note: Be aware that the visual analogue scale behaves slightly different in the fallback version (see ESMira Website)