A_Answer

TABLE A_Answer

Records in A_Answer are created/updated automatically when a participant submits a question block or the block is saved by the Save As You Go feature.

Note

Perception 5.7 only creates A_Answer records on block submit, not during saves.

Primary Key: Result_ID int NOT NULL

The ID of the associated result, see A_Result.Result_ID.

Primary Key: Question_MID int NOT NULL

The ID of the associated question is split across two fields, MID and LID, for legacy reasons. The ID itself can be obtained using the procedure outlined in MID and LID.

The ID refers to the question with the same MID and LID in Q_Question_Ex

Primary Key: Question_LID int NOT NULL

See A_Answer.Question_MID

Revision int

Primary Key: Occurrence smallint NOT NULL

The occurrence number of the answer. This number will generally be 1 and is supported only for legacy reasons. The occurrence number is part of the primary key for this table in the data model. In some historic data there may be multiple records which differ only in occurrence number. These records should be treated as duplicates. Use of the record with the lowest occurrence number is recommended when resolving such ambiguities.

Primary Key: Block_Number smallint NOT NULL

The number of the block in which the corresponding question was delivered. This is the sequence number, so if jump blocks are used in such as a way as to cause the participant to visit the same block (definition) twice each occurrence of the block would have its own Block_Number. The first question block in an assessment has block number 1.

Question_Number smallint

The number of the question within the block. The first question is number 1. Explanation questions do not count towards the numbering.

Status smallint

The status of the question when it was delivered. These values are taken from the status values of Q_Question_Ex.Status.

Signature varchar(50)

This is a legacy field for internal use only. It is set to an empty string in newer result sets.

Times_Answered smallint

Indicates if the participant answered the question, takes the values 0 or 1 only.

Max_Score int

The maximum possible score for the question.

Actual_Score int

The actual score achieved by the participant on this question.

Know_Time_Taken bit

Whether or not the A_Answer.Time_Taken field is valid.

Time_Taken int

The time the candidate took answering the question in seconds. To be read in conjunction with A_Answer.Know_Time_Taken.

Number_Outcomes smallint

The number of question outcomes that evaluated to true during the scoring of this question.

Outcome_Number smallint

The Outcome_Number of the first outcome to evaluate to true as listed in the A_Outcome_Ex table. The exact interpretation of this field changed with the introduction of Perception 5. For data generated with current versions of the system this value will be the same as the index of the choice in the corresponding QML.

Outcome_Exponential int

A bitfield containing flags indicating whether or not outcomes evaluated to true. The least significant bit represents the result of evaluating the first outcome. This field contains flags for the first 32 outcomes as listed in A_Outcome_Ex

Outcome_Exponential_2 int

A bitfield containing flags indicating whether or not outcomes evaluated to true. The least significant bit represents the result of evaluating the 33rd outcome. This field contains flags for outcomes 33 to 64.

Comment_ID int

The ID of the comment associated with this answer (if given). This is a reference to a record in A_Comment.

Answer_Truncated varchar(200)

The answer given by the participant, truncated to 50 characters. In the case of file upload questions this is an internal file name used to locate the file within the repository.

Know_Confidence bit

Unused, should be False.

Confidence_Level smallint

Unused, should be 0

Correct_Answer varchar(4000)

Unused

Topic varchar(1020)

The name of the topic, obtained from the deserialised QML of the question in Q_QML_Ex.QML_Data.

Answer_Full text

The full answer given by the participant.

The format of encoded answers depends on the question type. In most cases the values representing the choices are colon-separated with colons escaped using back-slash (and back-slashes escaped by doubling).

For Yes/No, Multiple choice, Multiple response, Likert and True/False the answer is taken as the content of the choice (effectively, the label visible to the participant taking the test).

For Matrix, Pull-down list, Matching, Ranking and Select a blank questions the answer is the content of the option selected from the choice.

The following types have their own special encoding schemes:

Survey matrix

Choices are separated by the HTML-like line break string “<br/>”

Job task analysis

Choices are separated by the string “|~”, choices represent triples of identifiers (dimension, task and selected option) and these are separated by the string “^~”.

File upload

The actual name of the file uploaded by the participant.