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Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

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ORGANIZING AND DESIGNING QUESTIONNAIRES 299<br />

marginal tabulations are immediately available and the data are<br />

ready for editing and analysis.<br />

Sample Control. A major function of all networked CATI programs<br />

is to keep track of sample outcomes and schedule callbacks as<br />

necessary. Since this is not part of the questionnaire design process,<br />

we do not discuss this function further, but it is an additional incentive<br />

for using CATI programs if follow-up calls are required.<br />

Issues in Computer-Assisted Interviewing<br />

Although computer-assisted interviewing solves many of the clerical<br />

problems associated with traditional paper interviews, it creates<br />

some new issues. First, computer-assisted interviewing demands that<br />

all aspects of data processing, data entry, data editing, and data<br />

analysis be developed before the study is fielded. We believe that<br />

advance preparation and thinking are vital for paper questionnaires<br />

as well, but with paper questionnaires it is possible to delay editing<br />

and analysis plans until the study is fielded and sometimes until the<br />

fieldwork is completed. Although this may delay the completion of<br />

the study, it will not necessarily affect the interviewing.<br />

It generally takes longer to do all the programming necessary to<br />

field a study using computers than it does to field a paper survey.<br />

This is especially true for complex studies involving many skips and<br />

other uses of the computer’s special capabilities. Simple studies can<br />

be rapidly programmed.<br />

<strong>The</strong>re were early claims that computer-assisted interviewing<br />

would save money by eliminating the data processing functions, but<br />

this has not proved to be the case. Generally, when comparisons<br />

have been made of total costs of similar studies, computer and paper<br />

surveys cost about the same. <strong>The</strong> costs are, of course, distributed<br />

quite differently. For studies with small sample sizes, it is probably<br />

more cost-efficient to use paper than computers because initial<br />

computer set-up costs are high regardless of the sample size. For

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