I have survey responses from the following question: "Seagrass loss can be attributed to what factors?" There are multiple factors which can be scored from 1-5. Thus, each survey respondent will give a number for each factor. I want to identify the factor that respondents indicate is most associated with seagrass loss.
I was thinking of just treating the scores as continuous, with the DV being score, IV being the factor, and the respondent as a random effect in a mixed model.