Don't know
To define a Don't know response, place the following line in the question’s response list in the metadata section of the interview script:
ResponseName "ResponseText" dk
For example:
WhenLastEatOut "When was the last time you went out for a meal?"
categorical [1..1]
{
Yesterday,
ThisWeek "Another weekday during this week",
LastWeekend "Last weekend",
WeeksAgo "A couple of weeks ago",
MonthAgo "About a month ago",
MoreThanMonth "More than a month ago",
LastEatOutDK "Can't remember" dk
};
Respondents may choose one of the listed political parties or Can't remember.
To allow Don't know as a response to a numeric, text, or date question, define the question as follows:
Qname "Text" Type [Size] codes (
{
ResponseName "ResponseText" dk
}
);
For example:
TimeLeft "And roughly what time did you leave the restaurant?"date ["07:00pm".."11:59pm"] codes (
{
TimeLeftDK "Can't remember" dk
}
);
When the interviewing program reaches this question, it displays an input box with a check box labelled Can't remember below it. Respondents may answer the question by either typing a time in the input box or selecting the check box.
mrScriptMetadata accepts a dash or hyphen (–) as the response name for special responses, and will generate a response whose name matches the special response keyword ("dk" in this instance). Although this is acceptable scriptwriting, we recommend that you choose unique names for all categorical responses, including special responses.
If you need to test for Don't know responses in the routing section of the script, use
Qname.Response.Coded as described in
Checking for special responses to non-categorical questions.
See also