The Head Teacher Interview Form

Here is how the form looked on the PDA's after we agreed on the forms' intent. The first screen identifies to the interviewer the title of the form and its purpose. Note the Save the Children branding.



The next screen, shown below, regards data privacy and reminds the interviewer to ask for the respondents permission to be interviewed.



If the respondent declines and the interviewer records "No", then the form simply moves to the end of the form and instructs the interviewer to thank the respondent for their consideration.



If the responent agrees to the interview, the first screen of questions is presented to the interviewer.



For instance, instead of having to type in the interviewers own name, they simply "tap" with the PDA's stylus (onscreen equivalent to a PC's left mouse click) on the button entitled "Lookup..." to the right of "Interviewer Name" and they are presented with a list of interviewers..



The PDA form designer can either limit the interviewer to only a selection of pre-determined interviewer names from the Lookup list, or they can allow them to type in an additional name not listed. This is a design consideration, and often you will want to restrict the selection to an exclusive list of items presented (in this case, interviewers names). But, you always need to consider what unexpected conditions that might be encountered in the field and to allow flexibility for the PDA user to add to the list on-the-fly, so to speak.myself.

There are also the flexibility in form design to offer a list of multiple selections of responses to a question ("AND" responses)



Now, let's see how the logic of the "what is your highest level of academic achievement" question displayed.



When the interviewer taps the Lookup button, they are presented with the four choices, including "Other" (notice "please specify" does not need to be shown)



If the respondent provides one of the first three responses, it is simply recorded and then moves to the next question. however if they choose "Other", then they are instead directed to a screen and asked to type in the "Other" achievement.



There is no way out of this sequence of screens - the logic must be followed, unless the interviewer makes the incorrect selection. Even then, the PDA form designer has a multitude of ways to guide, or even force, the interviewer to make the correct choices. Few of this PDA form functions are available for a paper-and-clipboard method of surveys. You can write anything on a paper form...