The Ranking Question choices are ranked by the overall score. This is calculated based on the number of choices and how many times each choice was ranked in certain positions.
For example, here is a data table taken from the results of a ranking question:
This Ranking Question has 5 choices. Each of the question’s choices are ordered in the table by the overall rank with “Family & Friends” ranking in first position.
How is the score calculated?
When choices are ranked, the order they are in will give each one a value or “weight”. The first position gives the highest “weight” and it goes down in value until the last position, which gives the lowest “weight”.
The question above has 5 choices, so when an item is ranked number one, it gets a score of 5, second position gets a score of 4, the fifth position gets the lowest score of 1. We calculate the total score of each choice based on these weighted values, for however many times it has been ranked.
When a participant chooses not to rank all choices (leaves some on the left) then the weighted values are adjusted to match the number of choices which have been selected and the scores are calculated based on that.
What is the Distribution Column?
The Distribution Column is a visual representation of how many times each choice was first, second etc.. In the above example, you can see that the choice “Family & Friends” is more distributed to the right side (yellow/green) values, indicating that it is a popular choice which ranks high. The “Freedom” choice is more on the left (Orange/Red) meaning is has mostly been ranked last.