How does Blue calculate response rates?

The response rate is a key statistic calculated in Blue, you may know it alternatively as the completion rate or the return rate. Generally speaking, a higher response rate is more desirable. There are six generally agreed upon definitions of response rate. The response rate definition used by Blue is the number of people who submitted their questionnaire divided by the number of people who were invited to complete the questionnaire (this includes the users who partially complete their questionnaires, the users that were deleted from the system, and the users that chose to opt out of the questionnaire).

Response rates can be measured in Blue for nearly every entity. Generally speaking, they are measured at either the report level which will take into consideration all of the responses and invites for the report as a whole, or at the individual question level. But response rates are also available for individual subjects, groups within a project and others. Regardless of which entity the response rate is being calculated for, the formula is always the same. How many responses were collected over how many were invited.

Blue calculations

The response ratio equation in Blue is:

Which leads to the response rate:

Listed below are the report blocks and other areas where the response rate is available:

• Blue landing page
• Response Rate Monitor
• Blue Dashboard
• Task Management
• Subject management
• Export report
• Report cover page
• Summary report block
• Frequency report block
• Spreadsheet report block