Help & Support

How is match % calculated?

written by
Courtney Webster
Last updated:
June 14, 2022

The match percentage, which shows up below a Participant’s Status, provides further transparency about how qualified a participant might be for your study. Participants are ordered from most to least qualified based on this score.

Who can see the score?

The match percentage score is visible to researchers, but not visible to participants.

How does User Interviews calculate the score?

Currently, the score is based on two factors:

  • Screener answer match: The number of screener questions with acceptable answers out of the total potential screener questions.
  • Characteristic match: The number of characteristic matches out of total characteristic data points. (Note: For “include all” attributes, any answer will be accepted as a match.)

The total score is calculated by adding the screener matches and characteristic matches together, divided by the total screener questions and characteristic data points. For example:

Screener = 11 / 12
Characteristics = 18 / 21
Total = 29 / 33, or an 87% match

How can match % help me make recruiting decisions?

Sometimes, a simple "qualified/unqualified" doesn't tell the full story. If you're on a deadline and want to invite more participants to your study sooner, you may want to consider approving 90%-matched participants.

Match % gives you one more data point to make more flexible, nuanced decisions about which participants to invite in which order. We automatically order participants by their match % in your participant view to simplify this process for you.

Why is there an Unqualified participant with a match score of 100%?

There are additional factors that User Interviews uses to help determine qualified and unqualified (like location, or recency of interviewing with you) which are not currently factored into the score but are taken into consideration when marking a participant "qualified" or "unqualified".

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