Timing statistics: how long respondents take | LimeSurvey

Timing statistics: how long respondents take

About timings

LimeSurvey can save how long each participant spends on the whole survey, on each question group and on each question. Use the times to find participants who rushed through, or to see which questions take long. Times are only saved if Save timings is on when you activate the survey.

Turn on Save timings before you activate

  1. In the editor, click Settings in the left toolbar and then Notifications & data.

  2. Turn Save timings on.

  3. Activate the survey.

Note: Save timings cannot be changed while the survey is active: the switch is greyed out. Responses collected while it is off have no times.

See the times

  1. Click Results in the top bar and then Responses list in the left panel.

  2. Click the column icon at the right end of the headings. Organize columns opens.

  3. Open Timings (1) and tick Total time (s), Group time (s) or Question time (s) (2).

  4. Click Confirm.

The Organize columns dialog with two areas numbered 1 and 2, the Timings section and the options Total time, Group time and Question time

The list shows the times in seconds: Total time (in s), one Group time column per question group and one Question time column per question.

To analyze the times, export your responses. The timing columns are included. See Export your responses.

Find participants who rushed

Participants who race through a survey give answers you cannot trust. A practical way to find them:

  1. Export your responses and open them in a spreadsheet.

  2. Sort by the total time and compute the median. Flag participants who took less than a third of the median. The median is better than the average, because a few very slow participants raise the average.

  3. Check the question times too. A normal total can hide a key question answered in one or two seconds.

  4. Before you exclude anyone, look at the answers. The same answer in every row of an array, combined with a very short time, is a clear case.

Tip: Add an attention check to long arrays, for example a row "Please select Agree in this row". Participants who fail it and rush are easy to spot.

Limit the time for a question

Separately from saving times, you can set a time limit for a question, for example to show an instruction or a picture for exactly 30 seconds.

  1. Select the question and click Advanced in the question settings.

  2. Open Timer.

  3. Enter the number of seconds in Time limit.

  4. Choose the Time limit action: Warn and move on, Move on without warning or Disable only.

Time limit disable next keeps participants on the page until the time is up. The other Timer fields set the messages and warnings participants see.

Next steps

FAQ

I turned on Save timings too late. Can I get the times of earlier responses?

No. Times are only saved while Save timings is on, and it can only be changed while the survey is not active. Deactivating archives your responses, so export them first. See Stop, pause or deactivate a survey.

Where is the Timing statistics page of older LimeSurvey versions?

In LimeSurvey 7 the times are columns in the responses list and in the export. Add them with Organize columns as described above.