In the survey,in addition to an informed consent form, participants were given a brief explanation and examples of six
types of rating formats. The specific formats included the GRS, forced distribution, RPM, weighted checklist (WC), paired comparison, and BOS formats, in that order. After receiving an explanation, participants were asked to indicate ‘the response that best describes your feelings’ for each format using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 7 (1¼very unfair; 7¼very fair).
Participants were also asked to rank order the formats according to fairness.