The Comments Report provides results on comments (responses to open-ended survey questions) and several ways to analyze the results by theme and sentiment. There are eight tabs available on the Comments Report.
This article walks through:
- Access the Comments Report
- Summary Tab
- All Comments Tab
- Thematic Analysis Tab
- Theme Co-Occurrence Tab
- Word Cloud Tab
- Word Frequency Tab
- Hot Spot Tab
- Crosstab Tab
- Export Option
Access the Comments Report
Navigate to the Surveys > Manage Surveys area.
Click View Reporting for the report you wish to analyze.
The Reporting area opens.
Click Comments Report on the left menu.
The Comments Report opens.
Summary Tab
The Summary tab provides a summary of your results so you can quickly understand where you might want to further investigate.
The Summary tab is divided into three sections:
Overall Statistics
This section provides a per-question summary of results that shows the number of respondents, the percentage of comments that are in response to each comment question item, and the distribution of sentiments (positive, neutral, and negative).
Top 5 Most Positive Themes
This section provides the top five positive themes identified in the comments, each theme’s respondent count, the percentage of comments mentioning each theme, and the distribution of sentiments (positive, neutral, and negative).
Top 5 Most Negative Themes
This section provides the top five negative themes identified in the comments, each theme’s respondent count, the percentage of comments mentioning each theme, and the distribution of sentiments (positive, neutral, and negative).
These summaries help you identify what is going well and possible areas of concern worthy of further exploration.
All Comments Tab
The All Comments tab provides a way to view all comments submitted in the survey, conduct searches, show the most noteworthy comments, and mark comments as read.
The top section of the tab displays:
total number of comments submitted in the survey
a percentage breakdown for sentiment (positive, neutral, and negative) among all the comments
percentage breakdown of intents detected among comments
(Praise & Approval, Shoulds & Suggestions, Wants & Preferences, Needs & Concerns, and Angry & Unfair)Search button you can use to search comments for specific sentiments, themes, words, and intents
The bottom section is the Comments section. Here, you can view comments for each of the open-ended questions in your survey and explore sentiment, theme, and intent analysis. By default, the questions display but the view of the responses is collapsed.
+ Expand All or + Collapse All
Click the + Expand All or + Collapse All options (top right) expand or collapse the response view for all the comment questions or click the plus icon or minus icon to expand or collapse the responses for individual questions.
Show Noteworthy Only
Select the Show Noteworthy Only checkbox to narrow the display of responses to only the ones the system detects and flags as important or insightful.
When you expand the responses for a question, the following columns display:
Search
You can use the Search feature to narrow the scope of the comment results based on specific questions, themes, words, or intents.
Use the dropdowns to refine your search by:
Comment Question Selection – Select specific questions
Sentiment Selection – Select specific sentiments
Theme Selection – Select specific themes
Search by Word – Search by a specific word
Exact Word Only – Search by a word exactly as typed in the Search by Word box
Intent Selection – Select specific intents
After you make your selections, click Apply to apply your search criteria. The Comments section of the tab updates to reflect your search results.
Thematic Analysis Tab
The Thematic Analysis tab lets you look at themes within the comments for further analysis. Keywords from comments are identified by Perceptyx and grouped into themes.
The top section of the tab displays the total number of comments submitted in the survey and a percentage breakdown for sentiment (positive, neutral, and negative) among all the comments.
This section also contains the Compare To dropdown. If you have configured trend to other surveys or have saved report filters, you can click the dropdown and select one of them. When you make a selection, a comparison bar displays below each result for which the trend or filter is applicable.
This section also contains a Search button you can use to search comments for specific sentiments, themes, words, and intents.
The bottom section contains an option for creating new themes and displays the following columns:
Create New Theme(s)
Although the system automatically generates a list of themes, you can create your own theme(s).
Click + Create Theme (top right).
The Theme dialog box appears.
Click the Theme box and type a name for the theme.
Click the Keywords box and then type a keyword to associate with the theme.
Click + Add.
The dialog box expands to include options for specifying an exact word only match, keywords to exclude, and alternative spellings for keywords.
Continue to add keywords, one at a time, until you have added as many as necessary.
Click Save.
The new theme is added.
Manage Keywords
Managing the keywords for a theme entails updating the requirements that comments must meet to be associated with a theme. The process is essentially the same as it is for adding a new theme – you can add new keywords, specify an exact word only match, specify exclusions, specify alternative key word spellings, and delete.
Click the pencil icon for the theme you want to work with.
The Theme dialog box appears.
Specify your options:
To add a new key word, click the Add New Key Word(s) box, type a key word, then click + Add.
To specify an exact word match, select the Exact Word Only checkbox.
To specify an exclusion, click the Exclude box, then type the word to be excluded.
To specify an alternative spelling, click the Spelling Alternatives box, then type alternative spellings.
To delete a key word, click Delete.
Click Save to save your changes.
Search
You can use the Search feature to narrow the scope of the results based on specific questions, themes, words, or intents.
Comment Question Selection – Select specific questions
Sentiment Selection – Select specific sentiments
Theme Selection – Select specific themes
Search by Word – Search by a specific word
Exact Word Only – Search by a word exactly as typed in the Search by Word box
Intent Selection – Select specific intents
After you make your selections, click Apply to apply your search criteria.
Theme Co-Occurrence Tab
The Theme Co-Occurrence tab shows you how themes in the comments relate to a specific theme you select. The top section of the tab contains two dropdowns:
Question: Select the question(s) to be included in the analysis.
Theme: Select the theme that the others will be compared against.
The bottom section of the tab contains the following columns:
Word Cloud Tab
The Word Cloud tab generates a real-time word cloud highlighting the words and phrases used most often within the comments. The word cloud displays the top 50 unique words found within the comments, color coded to indicate sentiment – positive (green), neutral (gray), and negative (red).
Show Results by Number of Words or by Themes
The Show dropdown (top left) defaults to the Show 1 word option; however, you can choose to show results for two- or three-word phrases or for themes.
Note: The Show 1-, 2-, and 3-words dropdown results are based on the number of times the word(s) appear in the comments, not the number of comments containing the word(s). The Show Themes dropdown results are based on the number of comments containing the theme(s), not the number of times the theme(s) appear in the comments.
View All Comments
Clicking a word, phrase, or theme within the word cloud displays the All Comments tab, filtered to show only the comments associated with the word(s) or theme you clicked.
Search
You can use the Search feature to narrow the scope of the results in the word cloud based on specific questions, themes, words, or intents.
Comment Question Selection – Select specific questions
Sentiment Selection – Select specific sentiments
Theme Selection – Select specific themes
Search by Word – Search by a specific word
Exact Word Only – Search by a word exactly as typed in the Search by Word box
Intent Selection – Select specific intents
After you make your selections, click Apply to apply your search criteria.
Word Frequency Tab
The Word Frequency tab shows a list of the 50 most common single words, two-word combinations, and three-word combinations in the comments. This tab displays the same results as the Word Cloud tab, except results are listed in a table and don’t include themes. The tab contains the following columns:
View All Comments
Clicking a word or phrase within the Word Frequency table displays the All Comments tab, filtered to show only the comments containing the word(s) you clicked.
Search
You can use the Search feature to narrow the scope of the results based on specific questions, themes, words, or intents.
Comment Question Selection – Select specific questions
Sentiment Selection – Select specific sentiments
Theme Selection – Select specific themes
Search by Word – Search by a specific word
Exact Word Only – Search by a word exactly as typed in the Search by Word box
Intent Selection – Select specific intents
After you make your selections, click Apply to apply your search criteria.
Hot Spot Tab
The Hot Spot tab provides a quantitative hot spot analysis of themes and sentiments data. Hot spots are pockets of responses with scores that are significantly higher or lower than those of other responses. You can check for hot spots across your demographic variables by examining sentiments and frequencies of comment themes, sentiments for question items, and sentiments for question items cut by theme.
The following options are available:
The body of the report contains the following columns:
The following example shows hot spots by region for all open-ended questions associated with the Benefits theme. Differences are based on the % Positive score. Hot spots are defined as a score of 5 or more percentage points lower (-5) in % Positive score than the Region Overall score, which is shown below the score for each region.
The following example shows hot spots by region for all open-ended questions and all themes. Differences are based on the Theme Prevalence score. Hot spots are defined as a score of 5 or more percentage points lower (-5) in Theme Prevalence score than the Region Overall score, which is shown below the score for each region.
Crosstab Tab
The Crosstab tab provides a cross tabulation analysis of themes and sentiments data. A crosstab is simply a table showing the relationship between two or more variables. The Crosstab tab calculates and displays a crosstab of theme occurrence and sentiment percentages, shaded according to an absolute scale (e.g., 100%-80%, 79%-60%, etc.), and provides 1 decimal point of precision.
The top section of the Crosstab tab contains the following options:
The body of the tab displays the crosstab result for your selected options.
The following example shows all themes compared to years of service and evaluated by % Positive.
The following example shows a question associated with the Culture theme compared to years of service and gender and evaluated by % Positive.
Note: If you select Theme as the Crosstab Type, the Theme dropdown will be unavailable, as the system will automatically aggregate by theme. However, if you select Question as the Crosstab Type, the Theme dropdown is accessible.
Export Option
You can export each tab of the Comments Report in Excel or PDF format. Click Export (bottom right) and then select Export PDF or Export Excel.
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