Create and apply a weight scheme

Weight your report data using questions from this survey or another survey, or profile variables, as weight variables.

1. Prepare your report data to be weighted:

   • Filter out participants with missing values.

     If you plan to use a profile variable as a weight variable, create a filter that includes all profile variable values. This will implicitly exclude participants who do not have values for that profile variable.

   • Merge and append any answers you want to display as a single option in your report.

     For more information, see Merge answers.

     Note: If you merge and append answers after you apply the weight scheme, an error message will appear.

   • Ensure you don't have outliers or disproportionately small groups in your weight variables.

     This can cause problems with your weight scheme. For example, let's say you receive 100 responses from senior citizens aged 65+ and 5 responses from senior citizens aged 80+. The weight scheme you apply could distort your data by under-representing the importance of the 100 responses and overinflating the importance of the 5 responses.

     To avoid this potential issue, you can:

     • Adjust your weights to more closely reflect the general population.
     • Merge the outliers with the next biggest group (for example, merging the 5 participants aged 80+ with the 100 participants aged 65+).
2. On the report toolbar, click Data > Weighting.
3. In the Weighting dialog, click New Weight Scheme.
4. Add a weight variable.
   1. From the Source list, select a source for the weight variable:
      • This Survey
      • Respondent Variables
      • Profile Variables
      • Another Survey
   2. From the second list, select a question, profile variable, or the survey.
   3. If you selected Another Survey as the source, select the question to use as a weight variable.
   4. Click Add.
      Note: To reduce the wait time loading weight variables, it is recommended to first click Apply and add weight variables with their original weight. Then, adjust the weighting.
5. On the next screen, specify target percentages for each answer category.

   Valid target percentages must:

   • Add up to 100% total.
   • Contain numbers only (not letters or special characters).
   • Be positive numbers (not negative numbers).
   • Be set to 0 if the sample percentage value is 0.
   • Be set to a value above 0 if a value above 0 exists for the sample percentage.
6. Optional: To add another weight variable, click + Weight Variable, and then repeat steps 4 and 5.
   You can have a maximum of 5 weight variables.
7. When you are finished, click Apply.
   Result:

   The application weights report data according to the weight scheme you created. When the process completes, the reports displays adjusted totals for answer categories.

   At the top of the report, a description of the weight scheme appears. You can click the Efficiency link to view the Weighting Efficiency Report or click Remove to remove the weight scheme.

   

   A breakdown of the weighted base, effective base, and unweighted base also appears for each question.

   Chart view:

   

   Table view:

   

   When you export your report to CSV, the weight values are included in a separate column.

   

   Note:

   • The tables for Numeric and Allocation questions do not have rows showing weighted, effective, and unweighted bases.
   • Weighting is not applied to Highlighter, Image Upload, or Open End questions.