SCORES

SCORES (Semantic Clustering of Open Responses via Embedding Similarity), a user-friendly, graphical tool that automatically processes and clusters open-response data via embeddings and clustering techniques. It's completely free to use and requires no programming experience.

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You can read the paper, which includes a detailed tutorial and information about different features of the tool here (it's open access).

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You can download SCORES for Windows and Linux here.

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If you use SCORES in your research, please cite: Klocke, L., Morgenroth, T., Zeng, Y., & Paaßen, B. (2026). SCORES: A Clustering Tool for Free-Text Responses. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459261418587.

 

When is SCORES useful?

SCORES is particularly useful when analyzing large numbers of relatively short open response data  (e.g., people listing stereotypes of a group, emotions they felt in certain situations, or attributes they look for in a partner). It basically replaces the process of coming up with a coding scheme and assigning responses into the different categories manually. The image below provides a handy guide for when SCORES (vs. other methods) may be useful.

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