Assessment scores in HNQIS are calculated using a weighted arithmetic mean of all the answered questions grouped by Compositive Indicators (Also referred as Feedback Orders). The basic formula for the score in a section is the following:
The formula is applied for every score and its nested sub-scores. To explain this further let's create the structure of an example HNQIS 2.0 Checklist.
Example HNQIS 2.0 Checklist with multiple nested scores. Q means Question.
In HNQIS 2.0 you're able to nest scores inside other scores and even combine those nested scores, let's proceed to explain how every score is calculated. You can see that the scoring follows a hierarchy based on how the Assessment is structured, the most important part here is that scores formulas are defined from the lowest level of the hierarchy to the top (from the innermost part of the Assessment Tree to the exterior).
Assessment Tree: Name of the structure of the Assessment, it's called Tree because the branching structure resembles a tree.
This means that, in the given example, the first score formulas that will be defined are Score 1.1, Score 1.2, Score 2.1 and Score 3. Also, every score is split in two parts: Numerator and Denominator. This is due to the following reason.
You may think that Score 1 is calculated by performing an average of Score 1.1 and Score 1.2, but that's not the case. All of the scores are only defined by the questions contained in each score. So, in this case, the value of Score 1 is determined solely by applying the Scoring Formula to questions Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6 and Q7; ignoring the independent values of Score 1.1 and Score 1.2.
This is the reason why every score is split between Numerator and Denominator, so that those values can be re-used in the Scoring Formulas of the upper scores.
Calculating a Score Containing Only Questions
Let's use the Scoring Formula to define the values of Score 1.1 and Score 1.2, which contain only questions:
NOTE: To simplify this example, every question will have a Numerator and Denominator value of 2.
Splitting the main Scoring Formula in the Numerator and Denominator formulas results in the following set of formulas:
About the Numerator and DenominatorIn reality, both the Numerator and Denominator are also split in two parts: Critical and Non-critical. The sum of Critical Numerator and Non-critical Numerator equals the Numerator of the score, the same applies for the Denominator of the score. This separation of Critical and Non-critical is mainly used for the Assessment Score and the Competency Class calculations, every other score uses the combination of Critical and Non-critical questions.The use of this distinction will be further explained in the Calculating the Critical and Non-critical Scores section.In this example we will assume that every question is Critical.
Now, the Score 1.1 which contains questions Q1, Q2 and Q3 would have the following set of formulas:
For Score 1.2 containing questions Q4, Q5, Q6 and Q7 the set of formulas would be the following:
The same process would be repeated for Score 2.1 and Score 3, that also only contains questions.
Calculating a Score Containing Multiple Sub-scores
In order to define the value of Score 1, which contains multiple sub-scores, the Numerators and Denominators of each sub-score are used instead of calculating the average of each section:
This means that, if a score contains more than two sub-scores, the formula would make use of the sub-scores Numerators and Denominators like this:
This formula applies even if a sub-score contains more sub-scores, there are no limits for the amount of nested scores.
Calculating the Assessment Score
IMPORTANT: The Assessment Score (also referred to as Global Score) is determined by the score of the Critical Questions in the checklist. If a HNQIS 2.0 Checklist doesn't contain Critical Questions, the score will be determined by the Non-critical Questions.
After all the main scores are defined (Score 1, Score 2 and Score 3 for this example), now is time to define the Assessment Score Formula, which basically is calculated in the same way as a Score containing multiple sub-scores.
The only important consideration is that this formula only includes Critical Questions (while the other ones included both Critical and Non-critical questions). Remember that if a checklist contains only Non-critical Questions, the Assessment Score will be based on those questions instead of the Critical Questions.
The Numerators and Denominators for each score in the example are the following:
Now, using the formula defined in the previous section the Assessment Score of this example ends up being:
The formula for the Assessment Score in this example ended up including all the questions in the checklist due to the assumption made at the beginning of this section. Imagine for a moment that the only Critical Questions in the checklist were Q1, Q2, Q3, Q8 and Q9; in that case the Assessment Score formula would be the following:
The PCA will automatically manage all the Critical and Non-critical Questions, so you don't have to worry about dealing with those tedious calculations. This is how the last equation looks like for DHIS2:
((((#{_S1Q1}*2+#{_S1Q2}*2+#{_S1Q3}*2)+(#{_S3Q1}*2+#{_S3Q2}*2)))) /
(((d2:countIfZeroPos('_S1Q1')*2+d2:countIfZeroPos('_S1Q2')*2+d2:countIfZeroPos('_S1Q3')*2)+(d2:countIfZeroPos('_S3Q1')*2+d2:countIfZeroPos('_S3Q2')*2)))
Calculating the Critical and Non-critical Scores
Previously, a special condition was presented to demonstrate the Assessment Score calculation. This condition was to assume that every question in the assessment was Critical, but in most cases, HNQIS Checklists contain a combination of Critical and Non-critical questions.
The Assessment Score will always be defined by the Critical Score, unless there are no Critical Questions in the Assessment. In the case that there are no Critical Questions, the Assesment Score will be defined by the Non-critical Score. Even if the Non-critical score is not always needed for the Assessment Score calculation, it's still used for the Competency Class Calculation.
Now, to define both formulas, the formula for Scores with multiple sub-scores is used as the base:
Then, taking into account that both the Numerator and Denominator can be split into Critical and Non-critical as briefly described previously, the Critical Score and Non-critical Score are defined as follows:
In the the Calculating the Assessment Score section, a new example was proposed were questions Q1, Q2, Q3, Q8 and Q9 were Critical and the others were Non-critical. This would result in the following Critical and Non-critical scores:
This surely is confusing, but don't worry, the PCA got you covered! Just keep in mind that all the other scores don't make a distinction between Critical and Non-critical questions, this is only used for the Assessment Score and the Competency Classification.
PRO TIP: The key to understand how these calculations work is to notice that all the formulas are basically the same. If a question is Critical, it'll be grouped with the Critical Numerators and Denominators, and if a question is Non-critical, it'll be grouped with the Non-critical Numerators and Denominators. Everything else is still the same.