Frequently Asked Questions

Q Method Software offers both a free subscription and two paid subscription options. To learn more about subscription plans, visit the pricing plans page.

No. You only need to maintain a subscription when you are creating, collecting, and analyzing data on qmethod software. The subscription is pausable, and you can deactivate/reactivate without losing your studies and data. Keep in mind that you can analyze data only with an active subscription.

Yes. You can cancel the recurring billing at any time to ensure you are not charged for the next billing period. You can read about the process in detail in our documentation here.

Yes, you can upgrade your subscription at any time.

No, this is available in the Enterprise package.

No. For most researchers, 10 statements in a study is not enough. The free package is to try Q Method Software to see if the platform is a good fit for your study, and for students to learn.

Q Method Software is compatible with all modern web browsers.

An option is available for researchers to allow their participants to advance through the task without completing the presort; however, at this time, any study that is conducted will begin at the presort screen. An option is in development to allow researchers to hide this step entirely and will be available in an upcoming release.

Yes, you can edit this at any time without affecting previously collected data.

Yes. You simply select and remove the participants and it will make room for the new ones. For more information, check out our documentation here.

Yes, the consent text is customizable by the researcher.  In addition, you are able to include your institution logo and other digital assets (images, videos and so on) in the HTML editor that you use to customize this field.

Q Method Software takes care of the necessary data backups for your study as part of our overall service.

The citation for this tool is:

Lutfallah, S. & Buchanan, L. (2019). Quantifying subjective data using online Q-methodology software. The Mental Lexicon, 14(3), 415-423. doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.20002.lut

Yes.The platform is developed in a way where researchers, by default, do not have access to participant’s Personal Identifiable Information (PID).  Researchers are able to customize all viable content that participants see, in order to ensure compliant messaging is displayed to your participants.  In addition, researchers can decide what, if any, personal information they collect in any of the surveys that a study may include.  In addition, the software does not record the IP address of participants, and the IP address is never exposed to the application layer at all.  Moreover, Q Method Software features settings that allow researchers to decide if they want participants to provide participants with a non-identifiable participation code, or not use participation codes at all,  to further anonymize participants, if the researcher wishes.

The platform is hosted in a Canadian cloud-based datacenter  in Montreal, Canada,and all data remains encrypted at rest, in Canada.

We do not collect or provide IP information of participants to researchers, and the system is designed in a way that researchers are able to choose if they would like to identify participants or not.  Essentially, you can design your study to be 100% anonymous, meaning participants do not need a participation code to complete the study.  Alternatively, you may assign non-identifiable participation codes in our system that correlate to a master participant list that you maintain in a secure location.  From there, the system would only ‘know’ your participants based on their identifier that you assign to them, in the form of their unique participation code. You can read about how to establish participation code requirements by reading our documentation article that covers this topic. In addition, this article goes over how to manage your participation codes, either by having the system generate them, or by importing them from your external list.

Please visit our privacy policy here.

Yes you can delete your study data at any time; however, once this is done, the study data can no longer be retrieved. Click here for more information about deleting your study data.

Yes, this option has moved since we have implemented the new Study Analysis Engine. After you have created a study analysis report, click “download report” from the option menu.

The benefit of the new analysis engine is that you can now save multiple analysis reports for each study using different rotation and extractions, then export each report’s data as needed.  You will need to generate a report, save it, then after you can download the data according to the settings applied in the analysis steps.

Currently, to view survey data, click the ellipsis button “…” button located at the end of the tables provided in the extracted factors page. Click “view survey responses”. Alternatively, the survey data will be included in the downloaded analysis report.

If you are using a Free or Student subscription, you may only have 1 data analysis report. You may choose to delete a report after you have downloaded it to create a new report. With an Enterprise subscription, you can create infinite reports (with an Enterprise subscription), and when you create an analysis report it is a sealed snapshot of your data at that time.  You can create a new report(s) using different methods, and they will all be retained based on the data when you created the report.

No, you do not need to use another software in conjunction with Q Method Software to analyze your study data. However, you may decide to use another software to cross-validate your results.

Check out our tutorial on how to complete a q-sort.

No, once the study is submitted the participant has no entry point back into the study. The user is able to change their sort prior to submitting.