Nowadays new equipment, new software with multi-media features and new data-input techniques are available for computer-aided personal interviews (CAPI): pen and voice recording. We call these small and light pen-pads with keyboards the CAPI Generation. An experiment showed that these new input techniques help to overcome a disadvantage of CAPI Generation I: now there are no longer fewer answers to open questions in CAPI than in paper-and-pencil interviews. The experiment also showed when it is advantageous to use interviewers and when self-administered CAPI is adequate.
This paper reviews the contribution that a computer mouse can offer with respect to enhancing Computer Aided Personal Interviewing (CAPI). The paper briefly refers to the new advantages and problems that CAPI has introduced, and goes on to discuss the role of analogue scales in particular. The benefits of the mouse are then illustrated via a controlled test example - showing that there can be both quality and cost benefits in using a mouse. The paper then reviews other uses of mice with CAPI, including simple selection type questions and for more advanced two-dimensional positioning work. The paper goes on to indicate the criteria which indicate when it can be beneficial to use a mouse and when not. In general the paper draws the conclusion that mice are more suitable for longer interviews and those which require greater sensitivity in the data. The mouse is less helpful in shorter studies or where sensitivity is not an issue. Finally the paper reviews the other common non-keyboard data entry devices and assesses their potential in a market research context. This section concentrates particularly upon the benefits that should accrue to the market research industry over the next decade arising out of the growth and development of stylus based systems.
It is a well known fact that children enjoy using computer equipment even more than adults. London Weekend Television has exploited this fact by interviewing interactively a sample of children in the London area using a direct computer interviewing (DCI) technique, developed together with Screen Research Limited. Under the project name IWT SUPPORT (Supplementary Ifenel Of Rotating Thrgets), Alcatel videotex terminals are placed in a selected number of homes for a period of four weeks and used to conduct intense daily studies on groups such as children who may be especially difficult to reach by conventional methods. This paper will address three specific issues. They are as follows: 1. Ocnveuticnal Methods Versus Direct computer Interviewing 2. The Way IMF Uses Direct Occputer Interviewing to Research Children 3. Results Fran the Children's Panel. Co-operation is also withheld because of the suspicion of sugging - selling under the guise of market research. Increasingly, survey data particularly for sales people and marketers is needed "yesterday". Most traditional survey techniques suffer from requiring both long lead times to organise and administer, and also from relatively slow turnaround of results. Our aim is to eliminate or minimize some of these problems through direct computer interviewing technique.
This paper looks at the growth of computer interviewing over recent years. It discusses our experience with respect to computer interviews and looks at where it has proved successful and where problems have arisen. The paper concentrates on the use of computers for face to face interviewing and does not discuss in any detail the more popular use of computers for telephone interviewing (CATI). The first section of the paper deals with some of the more practical issues involved in computer interviewing such as the implications for research costs, timing and training of interviewers. It will also look at how computer interviewing can be usefully used for multi-national surveys. The second section of the paper is concerned with more sophisticated uses of computer interviewing, where advantages to the user come not from consideration of costs etc. but the ability to conduct types of interview that would not be possible using traditional pencil and paper methodologies. Throughout the paper reference is made to a variety of software that we have used in the course of our work on computer interviewing. The paper is in no way an attempt to evaluate these different programs scientifically but rather reports on our experience with them to date.
Computers for Marketing Corporation, CfMC, a leading supplier of software to the marketing and survey research community both in Europe and the U.S., has recently developed a personal computer based tool kit designed for the research analyst and the marketing consultant, called SURVEYOR. SURVEYOR is derived from the most widely used system for data collection in the U.S., SURVENT, and one of the leading tabulation systems now available on PC - MENTOR. These systems are now fully introduced and supported throughout the European marketplace. A step-by-step demonstration will emphasise the completeness of this tool kit and the systematic way technology can now be used by any research analyst or consultant in collecting and analysing data without a great depth of computer expertise or training.
SKIM Market and Policy Research was founded in 1979 as an industrial market research company and befriended the PC rather early. Thanks to the enthousiasm of the researchers at SKIM and good contacts with Sawtooth, the American developers of software for market research, SKIM started a software division by the end of 1987. Now SKIM Software Division is selling and supporting PC-based software systems all over Europe. Simultaneously, SKIM Market and Policy Research, the parent company, has built up a name applying multi-variate techniques in the research process and now has a strong position in the market for international âcomputerizedâ surveys. Our main software-tools are: . ACA for (adaptive) conjoint analysis . APM for (adaptive) perceptual mapping . CCA for (convergent) cluster analysis These three systems not only help control proliferation of data, but also help improve quality and quantity of profitable information. The combined forces of SKIM Market and Policy Research and these systems ensure a unique combination of sound knowledge of market research methods and techniques, practical knowledge of users of the systems and a full range of services, all adaptable to your marketing problems in a flexible, efficient way.
In this paper we will discuss the quality of the data obtained by using computerised interviewing in a panel situation. For this form of research some extra advantages of computerised interviewing can be obtained. It will first be shown for data on income that the quality of the data is already on a high level, with important advantages because of the panel character when compared to ad hoc research. However from the same analysis follows that for policy relevant conclusions the quality of the data, and therefore of the questionnaire should be improved further. Another equally important aspect for panel research is that interviewees will become bored and irritated by exposure to similar questionnaires on a regular basis. Especially when they perceive little or no change in the answers they are providing. This may affect increased dropout and panel mortality, thereby reducing the usefulness and lifecycle of the panel. In the last part of the paper we will go into the improvements that may be obtained in computerised panel research by using information retained from previous interviews, when collecting new data.
From telephone interviewing and then computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) the last few years have brought along two new systems of datacollection by means of personal interviews. One is the Telepanel-system, which consists of a random sample of 1.000 households, of which the members answer questions that appear on their television set. The latter is connected to a home-computer they were supplied with by the research institute. By means of a modem and very userfriendly software the questionnaires are transmitted from the central computer to their home-computer and after the responses have been typed in, the data of the different members that were requested to respond in that particular weekend are transmitted back to the central computer. The data can then be processed immediately. The other development is CAPI, computer assisted personal interviewing in cross-sectional research. A group of specially trained interviewers visit homes or business addresses with portable personal computers. Questionnaires appear on the LCD-screen and the respondents themselves punch in the replies. In this paper we will focuss on extra advantages these methods have over existing procedures such as CATI and face-to- face interviews with paper and pencil. The first is obviously that the number of different response possibilities is more limited when using a telephone, the respondent will comprehend the question better if it can be read instead of heard and the third and in our opinion more decisive advantage is the reduction of the influence of the interviewer. The effects of these advantages will be shown to be of great value in: - getting more information concerning sensitive topics. - getting more and more valid information on difficult research topics. - getting more reliable data - enabling collection and analysis of non-sensitive data that write-in panels cannot produce.
This paper presents five examples to stimulate broader thinking of how to apply PCs to interviewing. The five examples include: (1) dynamically modifying the questionnaire during its administration; (2) providing respondents with feedback as part of the interview; (3) accessing databases during the interview;(4) adding interactive video to a questionnaire, and (5) developing interviews for group decision processes.
This paper describes the application of a new technique for data-collecting in the field of quantitative research into financial services. Researchers know that quantitative research into financial services mostly creates relatively more fieldwork problems than research for other consumer goods. In the first part of this paper a number of these problems will be discussed. the CAPI-system (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) has been used for a research study on behalf 6 main Dutch banking corporations. This method will be discussed in the second part of the paper. The third part of this paper deals with the results of the pilot study carried out by means of the CAPI-method and compared with the traditional methods of data-collecting. In this study, using the same questionnaire, data were collected by means of the traditional face-to-face method, the CATI-system and the CAPI-method. Comparison of the results coming from these data-collecting methods leads to a number of conclusions.
After the introduction of CATI and other computerised data collection methods, personal interviewing became somewhat neglected and, consequently, was believed to be less efficient. With computer assisted interviewing in a face-to-face situation, personal interviewing can now regain the attention it deserves. The time has come to 'send the computer into the field'. This paper deals with marketing research, seen from the viewpoint of the marketing researcher. We would like to comment on some of the advantages of the new method, and to indicate some useful applications.