Moble Data Collection In Uganda

It is Saturday and the team of Luc, Olivia, Sammy, Rhoda and Edna have finished their first three days of work together. As usual, the important part is forming the team for effective communication. The technical aspect of learning how to build forms and put them on the mobile devices seems to be why I am there. That is but the medium, for the real importance is to be able to leave the comfortable offices where all technology seems to work, and to ensure that the data collection instruments work in the field AND are usable by the persons using them. I repeat this over and over, alas I also find myself focusing on the technology.



The individuals on the team I have found are quite capable, well educated, and vitally they are curious and eager to learn. Fortunately the test form that we are building is perhaps the best form construction that I have seen. In part, it is because it is an Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) sampling form. It is a dichotomous (meaning the questions seek an answer of either Yes/No, blue/green, male/female, pregnant/not pregnant) statistical approach providing a high degree of confidence using a sample of only 19 respondents. After a day or so of learning about using the PDA and forms development software we spent an entire morning on Friday reviewing the structure and logic of the form in detail. What I was looking for as the facilitator was all the team members heads nodding in agreement as to the forms function. You cannot produce a viable, usable form without understanding it.

By end of day Friday Olivia was sitting at my laptop building the form with team consensus and myself in the background. Success. On Monday we will leave early in the morning and travel north about 60 kms to the programs' Family Planning project area in the district of Nakasongola. This is the part that I enjoy best. The team will largely provide the cascade training to the Health Extension Workers who would actually collect the data. My interest at that point, beside supporting the teams efforts, is to observe the interaction between the interviewers with the PDA's and the respondents - the human element encountering technology in a developing world environment!