A presentation by Respichius Mitti as part of the Practicalities of Cohort and Longitudinal Research panel discussion at the International Symposium on Cohort and Longitudinal Studies in Developing Contexts, UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, Florence, Italy 13-15 October 2014

1. Economic Development Initiatives
“Initiative on New Data and Measurement of
Outcomes for Children: Cohort and
Longitudinal Studies in Developing Contexts”
Firenze 13-15 October, 2014 UNICEF
Respichius D. Mitti
Country Director, EDI Limited - Tanzania

2. • EDI is a research house based in Bukoba-
Tanzania mainly implementing survey data
collection.
• EDI has conducted a number of cohort studies
for which it is common to include child-based
modules.
• Paper (PAPI) and Computer (CAPI) based
interviews have been used at different stages
and our experience gained is what motivates
developing and using Surveybe.

3. • Challenges that lead to capturing
inaccurate data
• Referencing data from
previous rounds.
• Referencing information
for successful modules
during interview.
• Clear identification of
who should be asked
which module.
• Linking IDs from earlier
completed modules.
• Making sure that relevant
questions are asked.
• Ensuring that the
responses entered are
consistent.
• Ensuring interviewers have
the correct/common
interpretation of the
questions being asked
Errors likely to be introduced

4. • Questionnaire design and data collection
software developed and marketed by
Economic Development Initiatives – UK
• Able to handle most complex questionnaires.
• Eliminating data entry as well as providing
error reports during interview.
• Guiding interviewers on the go.
• Exporting data to Stata, SPSS and (.csv) ready
to use
• More features ensuring data accuracy

5. Pre-populating rosters with previous data
Linking previous records simplified

6. • Automatic filtering rosters to only
members of target criteria, e.g. Age.
• Only target list displaying

7. • Routing of question and a module
• Automatic skipping of questions

8. • Routing of questions
• Automatic skipping of questions

9. • Auto-skipping of modules and questions
• “.. 94% of routing errors are avoided
through the automated routing system
and that the checks eliminate almost all
those that remain”
Caeyers , Chalmers and De Weerdt - 2011

10. Validating entries during interview
Inconsistencies dealt with during the
interview

11. • Impossible errors during interview
“CAPI reduces the number of impossible
entries by 0.34 per questionnaire
compared to PAPI and adding checks
further reduces this number by 0.15, to
almost zero. This means that in a dataset
of 1200 households, moving from PAPI to
full CAPI would reduce the number of
impossible entries by 588 in total”
Caeyers , Chalmers and De Weerdt (2011)

12. Screen and question specific instructions
Question specific instructions and
commenting options as you interview

13. • Other features include:
• Multilanguage, metadata management,
dynamic captions, dynamic responses and
many more.
• This achieves:
• Interviewers focussing on questions and
answers
• Data processing simplified
• Reliable and clean data available
alongside/immediately after fieldwork

14. Thank you