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How are single-choice question results calculated?

Learn how we count and analyze single choice and dropdown questions

Written by Agnieszka
Updated this week

A Single-choice question enables your respondent to select one response among the selections. In this article, you'll learn how we calculate and display the results from:

  • Single answer selection;

  • Dropdown list.

Other question types that only allow for choosing one answer and are described in separate articles, are NPS® and Rating & smiley scale.

To calculate the result of a single-choice question's answer, we divide the number of responses to a particular answer by the number of total responses provided to this question and multiply by 100.

In the Analyze tab, we automatically calculate your responses and show the most popular one by percentage first.

Single answer selection

Here, you can see an example of responses to a Single answer question. In total, this question received 41 responses; the first answer option was chosen 35 times, the second answer option was chosen 6 times. Please note that if this question also contained another answer option, it may not be present in this analysis if it hasn't received any responses.

Looking at the example of answer No, the percentage of No answers is 14.6%, because:

(number of responses = 6) / (number of total responses = 41) * 100 = 14.6.

💡If your single answer selection type of question collects comments provided by respondents in the comment fields, you'll also see them in the Analyze tab.

If you click ••• next to Answers, you'll be taken to the Individual responses tab to see all answers from this particular respondent.

Dropdown list

The results of a Dropdown list type of question are calculated in the same way as the results of a Single answer selection. In the below example, there are 26 responses, 12 of them were provided to the answer choice Poland, 4 provided to the answer choice United States and there is also other responses with different number of choices.

In the example of Poland, the percentage of this option is 46,1% because:

12 responses / 26 responses * 100 = 46.1.

Troubleshooting

I have responded to my survey but I don't see the results in the Analyze tab

After submitting your survey response, please refresh the browser tab with the Analyze tab. You should see the results then.

Best practices

Learn what all the information in your Analyze tab means

Take a look at our Survey results basic guide to understand your survey's response rate, completion rate, or the number of views.

Randomize answers to avoid respondent bias

In Single answer selection and Dropdown list types of questions, feel free to open Settings and enable the Randomize answers or Randomize except last option.

This feature can be useful if you don't want to influence respondents by the order or answer choices.

📞 If you have any questions about analyzing single-choice question results - feel free to reach out to our team via chat or e-mail: support@survicate.com

Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS - related emoticons are registered U.S. trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

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