PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?

It is very likely that electronic means of data collection will become a standard for socioeconomic surveys in the near future. As surveys move from paper form to personal digital assistants (PDAs) or tablets there is a need to evaluate if such a shift will affect the quality of the data. To explore...

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Main Authors: Escobal, J, Benites, S
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Routledge 2013
Subjects:
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author Escobal, J
Benites, S
author_facet Escobal, J
Benites, S
author_sort Escobal, J
collection OXFORD
description It is very likely that electronic means of data collection will become a standard for socioeconomic surveys in the near future. As surveys move from paper form to personal digital assistants (PDAs) or tablets there is a need to evaluate if such a shift will affect the quality of the data. To explore the potential biases that data collection through PDAs may generate, we use the third wave of Young Lives-Peru to randomly assign survey respondents between PDA-based questionnaires and paper-based questionnaires. The study shows that data collected through PDAs has a higher level of agreement when compared to paper-based responses. However, there are a number of situations where paper-based questionnaires do not easily translate to PDA-based questionnaires. In addition, the study highlights the need to improve training as different surveyor’s characteristics (age, gender, education, etc.) may also be correlated with some observed differences between PDA and paper-based questionnaires.
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spelling oxford-uuid:01a31863-9f26-4f4f-b154-9cc296e5a3f72022-03-26T08:36:07ZPDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:01a31863-9f26-4f4f-b154-9cc296e5a3f7Social SciencesEnglishOxford University Research Archive - ValetRoutledge2013Escobal, JBenites, SIt is very likely that electronic means of data collection will become a standard for socioeconomic surveys in the near future. As surveys move from paper form to personal digital assistants (PDAs) or tablets there is a need to evaluate if such a shift will affect the quality of the data. To explore the potential biases that data collection through PDAs may generate, we use the third wave of Young Lives-Peru to randomly assign survey respondents between PDA-based questionnaires and paper-based questionnaires. The study shows that data collected through PDAs has a higher level of agreement when compared to paper-based responses. However, there are a number of situations where paper-based questionnaires do not easily translate to PDA-based questionnaires. In addition, the study highlights the need to improve training as different surveyor’s characteristics (age, gender, education, etc.) may also be correlated with some observed differences between PDA and paper-based questionnaires.
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Escobal, J
Benites, S
PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title_full PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title_fullStr PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title_full_unstemmed PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title_short PDAs in socio-economic surveys : instrumental bias, surveyor bias or both?
title_sort pdas in socio economic surveys instrumental bias surveyor bias or both
topic Social Sciences
work_keys_str_mv AT escobalj pdasinsocioeconomicsurveysinstrumentalbiassurveyorbiasorboth
AT benitess pdasinsocioeconomicsurveysinstrumentalbiassurveyorbiasorboth