Young Lives Methods Guide: Introducing Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing

This guide describes how Young Lives, an international study of childhood poverty, used Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) in place of paper based questionnaires. This allowed researchers to go into the field with questionnaires loaded onto their laptops, PDAs or tablets and then easily download and process the information when ready, increasing the speed with which it can be analysed. The guide looks at the key considerations that must be considered before implementing CAPI and analyses the challenges that may hinder its use.

Excerpt

"Alongside the benefits that it brings, CAPI also presents challenges. CAPI technologies were developed for interviewing respondents in shopping malls and at trade shows in developed countries, and their transfer to often remote study sites with poor infrastructure demands careful consideration. In addition to this, the size and complexity of the Young Lives survey, with both country-specific components and multiple versions in different languages, presents particular challenges for software and programming." (Young Lives, 2011)

Sources

Young Lives (2011), Young Lives Methods Guide: Introducing Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing, Retrieved from http://www.younglives.org.uk/files/methods-guide/methods-guide-computer-...