Collecting Health Research Data

Comparing Mobile Phone-assisted Personal Interviewing to Paper-and-pen Data Collection

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2407460
AutoresAlastair C Van Heerden (Human Sciences Research Council, autor de correspondencia), Shane A Norri (0000-0001-7124-3788, University of the Witwatersrand), Shane A Norris (University of the Witwatersrand), Stephen M Tollman (University of the Witwatersrand), Stephen Tollman (0000-0003-0744-7588, University of the Witwatersrand), L M Richter (0000-0002-3654-3192, Human Sciences Research Council)
Año2014
Volumen26
Número4
Páginas307-321
Fecha de publicación2014-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCAM (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1087-8513 • E-ISSN: 1552-3969
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1525822x13518184
OpenAlexW2072444846
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas10

Mobile phone-assisted personal interviewing (MPAPI) is becoming a more widely used technique to collect survey data. Not having a hard copy paper document to return to when cleaning data raises the question of how data error rates compare with traditional paper surveys and at what cost. One hundred health research interviewers trained to use traditional pen-and-paper (PAP) survey methodology were recruited and randomly assigned to either a PAP or an MPAPI group. After receiving training on the survey instrument, each of the 100 interviewers conducted interviews with the same five interviewees, for a total of 500 interviews. Costs associated with the two survey methods were calculated. Very low error rates were achieved in both PAP and MPAPI, with a total of 381 data errors identified in 21,500 survey items. Findings suggest that experienced, well-trained interviewers using a short, well-constructed survey can produce very low error rates, independent of survey mode and that the benefits of MPAPI would be magnified as the size and complexity of the study increases

Data collection · Interview · Phone · Sociology · Statistics · Survey data collection · Survey methodology · Survey research · Applied Psychology · Computer Science · Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis · Mathematics · Mobile Crowdsensing and Crowdsourcing · Psychology · Survey Methodology and Nonresponse