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Conjoint Analysis (Discrete Choice Module) Designs

The SurveyAnalytics discrete choice module (DCM) provides a range of options to the researcher for carrying out discrete choice conjoint research.
One of the options specifies the design used by the DCM.

What do we mean by design in this context?

The design of a discrete choice question is the specification of how the respondent is presented the various levels of attributes in the survey. In
discrete choice questions respondents are presented with sets of profiles of possible products or services and asked to select one of them. The
configuration of the different choices, and how many are presented is referred to as the design of the discrete choice task. The subject of designs for
discrete choice studies can get very complicated. Selecting the correct design can help compensate for a lack of respondents or help with minimizing
the number of tasks a respondent has to do if there is a complex set of attributes with many levels. Respondents get fatigued quite quickly and a lot
of tasks can mean that the accuracy of their choices degrades as they do more and more tasks. There may also be a lack of respondents, so a good
design helps maximize the information collected from the limited pool of respondents. The simplest form of design is to present all possible
configurations of levels compared to all others. The problem with this is that as the number of attributes and levels increases the number of
combinations of product attributes increases exponentially. This means that the respondent would have to do too many tasks to perform for the data
to be reliable. An alternative is to generate random subsets of configurations for the choice task. A randomization design can be ideal except that
again in order to be sure that the space of all possible configurations is selected equally may mean using more respondents than are available.
Again there is the issue of restricting the number of tasks respondents perform. Unfortunately very often there are limitations on the number of
respondents that can be used in a study, meaning that a randomized design is not advisable. In some studies there are prohibitions, which mean that
certain levels of attributes cannot be used together. For instance the deluxe option for a car interior cannot be shown with a price of $100.
Prohibitions also exclude a common sort of design, called orthogonal designs, from being used in a study, and d-optimal is an ideal alternative
design. A good design will select specific configurations in a way such that the range of possible configurations is sampled in an efficient way. Designs
are an optimization of the attribute levels available, they are an attempt, given various limitations, to select the best configurations of levels to give
the most accurate results. The d-optimal design algorithm is therefore an attempt to best use the available respondents.

What designs are available in SurveyAnalytics Discrete Choice Model?

1. Random Random design is a purely random sample of the possible attribute levels. For the number of tasks per respondent
SurveyAnalytics produces a unique set of attribute configurations to be presented to the respondent.
2. D-optimal This is a design algorithm that will produce an optimal design for the specified number of tasks per respondent and sample
size. More information on this design algorithm is available in the D-Optimal section.
3. Import Design This allows designs, in the SPSS design format, to be imported and used by the SurveyAnalytics DCM module. This is useful
when users want to use designs not generated by SurveyAnalytics, such as fractional factorial orthogonal designs.

You will find this option under question Settings.

What are 'Optimal Designs'?

Optimal designs are a class of experimental designs that are optimal with respect to some statistical criterion. In the design of experiments for
estimating statistical models, optimal designs allow parameters to be estimated without bias and with minimum-variance. A non-optimal design
requires a greater number of experimental runs to estimate the parameters with the same precision as an optimal design. In practical terms, optimal
experiments can reduce the costs of experimentation.

What is D-Optimal / DOptimal / D Optimal Design?

Conjoint Analysis D-Optimal Design is a design based on D-Optimality for the Conjoint Analysis (Discrete Choice) question. In general, D-Optimality is
a concept that uses a desired set of experiments to optimize or investigate a studied object. It seeks to minimize |(X'X)1|, or equivalently maximize
the determinant of the information matrix X'X of the design.

How do I set up a Conjoint Analysis question with DOptimal design?

Step 1: First, you need to add a Conjoint (DCM) question to the survey.Go to:
Login Surveys Edit Workspace Add Question Advanced Question Types Conjoint Models
Type in the Header / Instrutionsusing inline editing
Add the Levels
 Add the Features for each level

The Features and Levels once added and saved cannot be changed later, so ensure to properly complete this step before saving.

Choose the number of screens with options to be be selected that you wish to show your respondents, under Tasks
Choose the number of concepts to be displayed in each task under Concepts
Enable the toggle button if you'd like to include a 'Not applicable choice' option (Optional), and provide a text in the box to appear as column
header for this

Step 2: Go to the saved question and click on 'Settings' link for it

In the 'design' dropdown choose DOptimal. The inline popup window will refresh automatically.
Versions: Here specify how many versions of the DOptimal design would you like to generate. If multiple designs are generated, a large doptimal
design, with total tasks equal to (the number of tasks specified) X ( the number of versions specified) will be generated. While taking survey each
user will get as many tasks as specified in the question but these will randomly chosen from large doptimal design generated earlier.
Click on save button to proceed

How can I import a design?

Step 1:Start by adding a Conjoint DCM question as is walked through above. Ensure that under 'Task Count' and 'Concepts Per Task' you
choose the same numbers as that you have in the Excel sheet you are going to import
Step 2: Click on 'Settings'. In the in-line popup in 'Design type' choose 'Import'
Step 3:The pop will refresh automatically showing a sample format of the import design on the screen. Also a link to a sample import file lets you
download it for your reference. Once your file is ready use the upload option to select it and import it.

Version:The first column in the spreadsheet is about the version number of the designs. Multiple versions get displayed randomly to the
respondents. This number should be '0' if the particular row is about a fixed task. Task:The second column is the task number i.e. the group of
options displayed at a time on the screen. Concept:The third column is the concepts number within each task. The columns after this will depend
upon the number of features you have in the question - one column per feature.

Ensure that you type in the corresponding number for each attribute correctly as specified just above the file selection box

Step 4: On the following screen click on 'Import Design'.

 Note: Back Button is not supported in Conjoint Question.

License & Access Options

This feature/tools described here are available with the following license(s) :

Enterprise Edition (http://www.questionpro.com/pricing/)

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