Recurring Survey to Collect and Evaluate Same Person's Data

Hi! First of all, I love the idea of tracking your participants' progress over time. I think that'll give you some really great data. With that kind of recurring survey, you'll want to make sure you can accurately connect a participant's later responses with earlier ones. That often means that the ID you use to track them has to be typed/written in the exact same way, in every survey the participant takes. That means if your respondent enters a nickname the first time and their full name another time, you'll have trouble automatically connecting those responses. The more data you get, the harder it will be to keep track of everything. That's why I like to use embedded data and unique IDs when I run recurring surveys. By putting the unique ID into the backend (in data embedded into the link), and having respondents use their own unique link to take the survey, I know that I'll be able to track them over time. That does take a bit more work up front, on the administrative side.
If you would prefer to just have a single reusable link for everyone that takes your survey (and that's perfectly fine if you want to go that route!), then maybe you can request an email address instead of a name. While some people do have multiple email addresses, I've found that people are more consistent in how they write their email vs. how they write their name. When writing your survey, you could also suggest that they provide the same email address in the survey that they used when registering for classes (if you have them use an email for that). That might help ensure they are more consistent in the email address they provide in the survey.

Now, in order to show questions about goals... you said in your post that you'd like the person's name to pull up a unique set of questions, based on their goals. To do that, you would have to know what everyone's goals are ahead of time. Then you would have to add display logic to every goal question, and set it to display only if their name (or other unique ID, like their email) was the same as what the participant entered in the start of the survey. You would have to constantly update your display logic whenever you got a new student. That is going to be a LOT of display logic to do it for every individual person. So I'd say that's not really scalable.
There are ways you could automatically pull up the correct set of goal questions with embedded data and unique links. But I'm going to again assume that you want to use a single, reusable link for everyone who takes your survey. In that case, I would include a question in the start of the survey asking participants to select their goals from a list. Note that with this system, it's possible that a participant might decide to change their goals and select a different answer at some point in time. But I think having the participant select their goal from a list will make it easier for you in the long run.
So, here's a suggestion for how to structure your survey:

• Q1: Enter email address (or name, or other unique ID)


• Q2: Select week # (1, 2, 3, 4, ...)


• Q3: Select goals (goal A, B, C, D, ...)


• (The next few questions will depend on the goal selected. You will need a page break here. Qualtrics will help you out and automatically add page breaks before questions with display logic, if you forget.)


• Q4, Q5, Q6: Add display logic to display these questions IF Q3 (select goals) is equal to Goal A. These question will be whatever you want to ask about Goal A.


• Q7, Q8, Q9: Add display logic to display these questions IF Q3 (select goals) is equal to Goal B. These questions will ask whatever you want to know about Goal B.


• And so on for the remaining goals. Remember to add display logic to each individual question, as needed.

Here's some more information on display logic. As always, make sure you preview your survey several times before you release it, to make sure that your display logic is set up properly and functioning correctly.
There are, of course, other ways to do this in Qualtrics. You could use different blocks and branching logic in your survey flow, too.
Hope that helps a bit. Good luck with the survey, and the wellness class!

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