I am catching up on my blogging due to intermittant internet connectivity and travel to Malawi. Last Friday was my trip to the field. We drove 2 1/2 hours south of here. It was stunning. We had to rise up to a mountain pass of over 6.000 feet. All was covered in a light powdery snow with a brilliant blue sky and much warmer temperatures than down in Yerevan where I have been. Still, it was below freezing. Not many trees on the mountainsides, but plenty of rushing streams of freezing water.
The team traveled in separate vehicles since there were five of us – a pretty tight fit in one SUV. We were going to test the two forms that the team built in the Marz of Vayots Dzor. We first stopped in the village of Saravan and entered a building which appeared to be the village administration location. There, we were introduced to several workers in the program here including the Deputy Mayor. Not long after we began the PDA surveys, the Mayor himself came to observe our activities.
Each team member had a PDA with the forms that I had pre-loaded the night before. I had reviewed each form for any logic errors. There might have been a few minor changes I might have made, but these would be learning lessons for our review when we reassembled on Monday. Each team member paired up with a respondent as I observed. Sofik seems to have an innate skill to position herself in a body-language friendly position for the interviews. Each member was adept having the respondent being able to see the screen of the PDA. This is important and differs from using the traditional paper-and-clipboard method.
Not only during my work with the Save the Children, but I have always noticed that interviewers unconsciously place the clipboard between themselves and the person being interviewed. This always seems to engender at the least a curiosity, and at worst mistrust between the two parties. It can form an inanimate barrier between people. On the other hand, I have noticed continually that they PDA, because of its small size, allowing the interviewer to more easily come alongside the respondent. Always, the respondent will at first be drawn to the technological device. This can cause a concern, as I have seen respondents in remote villages ask if their voices are being records, or are their pictures being taken. In Uganda, the PDA team had decided that they actually informed the respondent that their responses would be private and nothing other than their verbal responses were being record in a written manner.
Again, after the initial curiosity of the respondent, invariably I have observed that the respondent and holder of the PDA release from the technical aspect of the PDA. Then, there seems to be a great trust involved and the respondent soon loses interest in the PDA. Then, the respondent is able to maintain eye contact in the absence of the clipboard barrier to concentrate on the questions being asked.
Additionally, the interviewer is largely freed from interpreting the logic of the questioning because of shuffling papers or trying to determine which questions should be advanced based on the respondents answer. This latter is designed into the form through the use of simple scripting. The team later comment on this that they simply had to tap the screen and the PDA question logic was enacted automatically.
We then traveled a short distance to an art school that had been renovated for the community of Vayk. We did not conduct any interviews here, but after a brief session with the staff, we walked into a large dance practice hall. Here were young children, probably eight to ten years of age practicing during their dance class. There were both boys and girls in the class and soon after the music started we began to clap our hands to what Margarita told me was the national dance of Armenia. Well, with all of those children whirling around the dance floor to the lively music, soon I also was whirling around the floor arm in arm with Margarita. How can one resist – life is short.
On Sunday, Margarita and her husband (whom I met upon our return from the field yesterday) picked me up early this afternoon to do some shopping. She has been great giving me background on Armenia, so I am really looking forward to it. The highlight was a surprise visit for an Armenian dinner to their apartment in an area on the outskirts of Yerevan called Bangladesh. Since I have made three trips to that country, I was curious as to its name here in Armenia. Margarita explained it was named such because it was so far away from the city center (just a few kilometers in actuality).
They had a beautiful apartment filled with books (both Margarita and her husband attended university) and two young daughters, the youngest of which was quite shy at my arrival. The older daughter showed off her PDA phone with connection to local television, internet, SMS and email. I had never encountered this particular device in my PDA reviews. Margarita husband informed me that it was a model that would not be available to a non-U.S. market. These I have reviewed from Asian retailers, but never available in the U.S.
It is always such an honor to crosss the border across cultures whenever I have the opportunity to enter a staffers household. These are most dear experiences for me.
We dined on cheeses and sliced meats and a wonderful rice dish. They table was filled with other dishes and especially the bread that I have learned to love. I am not much of a drinker, but we did toast ourselves with Russian vodka. Lastly, I was poured a small glass of Armenia brandy. Armenia is famous for its brandy with the Ararat brandy factory having been established in Yerevan in 1887. Winston Churchill so enjoyed this brandy that Josef Staling would send him bottles of it while the two countries enjoyed good relations. When my glass was poured from across the table, I was suffused with the heady fruity aroma of the brandy. It was delicious and gently warming. Later, Maragarita explained and adressed me as David Jan. I was no longer simply the visiting consultant, but a friend of Armenia. this is truly a wonderful country of warm people.
On Monday, the team reassembled and we reviewed our field activities. Everyone agreed (as I always hear) that the forms functioned quickly, and in the case of our two forms – flawlessly. There was concern over the slower input method of the onscreen keyboard when recording qualitative responses. This was commented on by Guram in the field, which I showed him how to change the keyboard to one with larger keys. Still, paper is easier to write on, but totally lacks the added values of automatic answer progression (skip questioning) and restriction of inaccurate or out of range answers. Plus, the additional time of using the PDA keyboard is more than made up for with the elimination of post-interview hand transcription.
Over the weekend I had synchronized all of the data from the team’s interviews form the PDA’s to the Pendragon form software. I exported the data from the native Microsoft Access data base to more easily viewed Excel spreadsheets. All of the data looked good except for one curious record for each form. Again, you never see these things in the field, but only after post interview data review. The PDA records two additional fields in addition to the questions of PDA device name and date and time to the hundredth of a second. These two fields serve as composite keys in database parlance. It ensures behind the scenes that all records are maintained as unique records and that no data is lost. It was evident from the date/time stamp when the interviews took place – a little after noon and later after 2PM. But one record for each form had a date a little after midnight. Ah, this was my mistake. Those consultants - I had neglected to reset the PDA date and time from West Coast U.S. time. It was recording data exactly 12 time zones earlier. Databases, including mobile databases, do not lie.
Even though I do not consider myself a dancer by nature, it seems I always find myself dancing. It happened on a stage during a school presentation in La Paz Bolivia just a few hours after my arrival at the 13,500 foot elevation of that city. When a natively-costumed dancer spied me in the audience I knew that afterwards I would either have a lifetime memory, or pass out from oxygen-deprivation right there in front of the whole community. The former happened. This experience has been repeated for some strange reason all over the world, especially in Latin America. I just must look like a dancin’ fool!
So, I will spend a couple of days here next week finishing the assessment, then onto Malawi.
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