Questionnaire Design in Blaise for a Multimode Survey
Hilde Degerdal & Jan Haslund; Statistics Norway, Norway
In the paper we will discuss the design implications involved in collecting data via three different survey modes for
the 3rd Continuous Vocational Training Survey 2006 in Norway (CVTS3). The survey objective is to implement the
CVTS3 according to the specifications to be agreed between Eurostat and EU Member States, in the CVTS
Commission Implementing Regulation.
In addition to CVTS3 objective itself, Statistics Norway will provide a pilot addressing enterprises with 1-9
employees and one addressing new NACE categories. Further, Statistics Norway will implement new
methodologies for CVTS3 i.e. web questionnaires. The latter will be one of the key elements in our design.
So, in addition to our survey objects, we have two experimental objectives:
1. To study possible instrument effects of the combination of methods originally proposed in the project
2. To study how interviewers most efficiently can be used in business surveys
In the CVT3 survey we will have to designs, one for large and one for medium size enterprises. It is planned that
enterprises with more than 250 employees should be contacted by telephone and then interviewed by personal
interviews, while smaller companies will be contacted by post and offered to respond on web or a paper
questionnaire. In the first design there is no separate reminding strategy. In the second design, however, those
who have not responded before the deadline will receive a postal reminder. Schematic these two designs can be
described like this:
• Design1: Telephone contact Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI)
• Design2: Postal contactPaper and Pencil or Computer Assisted Self Completion (PAPI/CAWI) Postal
reminder
In addition we would like to compare these two designs with a third one that we believe might be a more cost
efficient way of using interviewers in business surveys. This design can be described like this:
• Design3: Telephone contact Pencil or Computer Assisted Self Completion (PAPI/CAWI) Telephone
reminder
The telephone reminder may cause an interview, and then we need a CATI-instrument.
All data is going to be analysed in one joined data file. We want the data manipulation to be as straight forward as
possible. For CVTS, it is extremely great demands on consistent of the data. Hence, it is also convenient that all
data are collected with the same set of rules. That is one reason we decided to make one questionnaire for all
methods. The tool we have for making different instruments out of on questionnaire is Blaise!
Of course the different modes require different level of how strict the checks are executed. We will also have to
adjust the help-instructions after the mode of data collection; taking into consideration that some of the instruments
are meant for professional data collectors (interviewers) and other are for amateurs.
In Statistics Norway we have clear guidelines for what a web questionnaire should look like. Gustav Haraldsen has
made a manual on how to make good web questionnaires, and we need to follow those guidelines. It means very
high focus on user-friendliness.
In our paper we will describe the process of making the different instruments. We will start the work with the
questions as a word-document. By now (November 2005) we think we will start with authoring the instrument for
CAPI. When writing the code we have to keep in mind that it shall be as easy as possible to convert it into a WEBquestionnaire.
The paper will focus on what we did take into consideration, and what did we learn during the
process, that we should have taken into consideration. It will also describe the challenges we met during the
process, in following the guidelines for user-friendly web questionnaires.
| Contact: hde@ssb.no |