Is it possible to use the dropdown element in Inquist with no default response? - inquisit

Question

I have a demographic item in Inquisit where participants indicate their response using a dropdown menu.
However, at the moment it default to showing the first response. Thus, if a participant skipped the question, their response would be recorded as the default. I want to require participants to make an active choice.
Is there a way of using the dropdown element so that there is no default response?
See the example code below followed by a sample screen shot.
<surveypage age>/ questions=[1=age] / showquestionnumbers = false </surveypage>
<dropdown age>
/ caption="Age in years:"
/ options=("18 to 25", "26 to 30", "31 to 40", "41 to 50", "51 and over")
/ required=true
</dropdown>

Answer 1

One solution is to combine the validresponse attribute with the options attribute.
Add an empty string or some other descriptive text (e.g., "select option") to the start of the list of options.
copy the set of responses in the validresponse attribute but remove the empty string.
For example:
<surveypage age>/ questions=[1=age] / showquestionnumbers = false </surveypage>
<dropdown age>
/ caption="Age in years:"
/ options=("", "18 to 25", "26 to 30", "31 to 40", "41 to 50", "51 and over")
/ validresponse=("18 to 25", "26 to 30", "31 to 40", "41 to 50", "51 and over")
/ required=true
</dropdown>
The screen will default to this:
and by using the required=true option, participants are not able to skip an item. The question will be displayed in red if participants try to skip.