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Maintaining anonymity whilst being able to identify a participant if necessary

  • May 26, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 312 views
P

I am using Qualtrics to create a questionnaire to be filled out by students about mental health. To promote honestly we want to keep the survey as anonymous as possible, but for safeguarding reasons I need to be able to identify a particular student if any of their answers cause me concern.
Is there a function that can facilitate this on Quatrics?
I have wondered whether this could be done by generating a participant ID at the start of the survey, but I would then need to ensure the student notes their ID down!? I also have seen the possibility of sending an automatic email when a student gives a specific answer but again, even if I receive a trigger email flagging up when a specific answer is given, I need some way of identifying who it was that gave that answer.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Best answer by Mishraji

pip21 - You can create an embedded data in the survey flow and store the student id/email in this field.

2 replies

MatthewM
Level 6 ●●●●●●
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  • MatthewM
  • Level 6 ●●●●●●
  • May 26, 2021

Hi pip21 ,
Are you using the Qualtrics mailer to distribute unique survey links to each student, or Personal Links? If either one, what I would recommend is to assign a unique ID number to each member of your email list; it should be a column in the file you upload to Qualtrics. Use Embedded Data in the Survey Flow to pull the ID number into your survey data. Then use Actions to set up an Email task for each key question you would need to follow-up on for concerning responses, and include the ID number in the messages they generate so you can ID the respondent in your email list.
If you are not using unique links sent by email or Personal links, then there wouldn't be a way to identify the respondents without them entering something themselves.
If you are following the first scenario I would lean towards calling the survey "confidential" rather than completely anonymous, or consider a disclaimer which states that responses of concern may be followed up with.

Mishraji
Level 4 ●●●●
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  • Mishraji
  • Level 4 ●●●●
  • Answer
  • May 26, 2021

pip21 - You can create an embedded data in the survey flow and store the student id/email in this field.

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