What is the difference between a Result Calculation and a Score Calculation?

Every calculation in Brilliant Assessments has two formula boxes: a Result Calculation (top box) and a Score Calculation (bottom box). The difference is important because it determines how the output is stored and where it appears.

Result Calculation

• Purpose: generates a value for reporting purposes only.
• Output type: text or a number.
• Effect on scoring: none. It does not contribute to any score or percentage.
• How to display it: insert an AnswerText merge string referencing the calculation's number into your report or into question or instruction text.
• Placement: it can sit in the same section or subsection as the related questions, because it does not affect that section's score.

Use a Result Calculation when you want to compute and display a value, for example a return-on-investment figure or a conditional piece of text.

Score Calculation

• Purpose: generates a value that contributes to scoring.
• Output type: numeric only. The result is added to the subsection, section, assessment, and any segmentation scores, exactly as if it were a question and answer.
• Potential Points: must be set, in the same way as a question's Potential Points.
• Placement: because a Score Calculation has Potential Points, its score behaves like a question's answer and contributes to the subsection, section, assessment, and any linked segmentation scores wherever it is placed. Where you put it therefore depends on whether you want it to count toward those scores:
  • To keep it out of the overall assessment score, create a separate section for it (often an Individual Report section) that is only pulled into the report and does not contribute to the assessment score.
  • Alternatively, place it in a separate subsection and exclude that subsection from scoring in the subsection's scoring settings. The calculation still contributes within that subsection, but the subsection itself is then not included in the section or assessment score.
  • To feed the calculated score into a segmentation, link the calculation to that segmentation on the calculation's Segmentations tab.

Use a Score Calculation when the calculated value should count toward the respondent's score, for example converting a number the respondent entered into points.

For full details, see Setting Up Calculations for Assessments and Common Calculation Examples.