The Format tab on the MaxDiff Exercise dialog provides many options for formatting your MaxDiff or Method of Paired Comparison (MPC) questions. We suggest you experiment with the settings and click the Preview button to view the effects.
There has not been much research conducted on the best layout for MaxDiff questions. We provide different layouts here for your experimentation and use. If these options do not give you the exact look you need for your question, you can customize your own MaxDiff layout using Free Format and your own scripted HTML.
One significant methodological question is whether to ask for both "best" and "worst" (when displaying three items or more per set) or whether to omit the "worst" question.
Should We Ask for "Worsts"?
MaxDiff allows researchers to ask for "best" and "worst" choices within subsets of items (set size >=3), or to ask only for "bests." Collecting both bests and worsts contributes more information. However, it has been shown that the scores resulting from best choices may differ (statistically significant differences) from those developed only using worst choices. However, the results tend to be quite similar between bests and worsts. There is some debate among leading academics regarding the statistical properties of "worsts" and whether including both bests and worsts is appropriate. We at Sawtooth Software do not know which approach is best (to ask for worsts or not). Asking only for "bests" is theoretically more sound, but asking for "worsts" seems to offer practical value. We hope that offering flexibility in this software will lead to more experimentation in this area.
