face‐to‐face interviewing in which interviewers use a laptop computer to conduct the interview.
Figure 1.9 shows an example of a screen of a CAPI program generated by Blaise. The screen was divided in two parts. The upper part contains the current question to be answered (What kind of a job do you have?). After an answer had been entered, this question was replaced by the next question on the route.
Just displaying one question at the time gave the interviewers only limited feedback on where they are in the questionnaire. Therefore, the lower part of the screen displayed (in a very compact way) the current page of the questionnaire.
Statistics Netherlands started full‐scale use of CAPI in regular survey in 1987. The first CAPI survey was the Labor Force Survey. Each month, about 400 interviewers equipped with laptops visited 12,000 addresses. After a day of interviewing, the laptop was connected to a telephone modem. The data were transmitted to the office at night. In return, new addresses were sent to the interviewers. The next morning the laptop was prepared for a new day of interviewing.
CATI was introduced in 1990 on desktop computers. Interviewers called respondents from a central unit (call center) and conducted interviews by telephone. The interviewing program for CATI was the same as that for CAPI. An important new tool for CATI was a call scheduling system. This system took care of proper delivering busy numbers (try again shortly), no answers (try again later), appointments, etc.
By the very early 1990s, nearly all household surveys of Statistics Netherlands had become CAPI or CATI surveys. Surveys using paper forms had almost become extinct. Table 1.3 lists all major and regular household surveys at that time together with their mode of interviewing.
Table 1.3 Household surveys carried out by Statistics Netherlands in the early 1990s
| Survey | Mode | Interviews per year |
|---|---|---|
| Survey on Quality of Life | CAPI | 7,500 |
| Health Survey | CAPI | 6,200 |
| Day Recreation Survey | CAPI | 36,000 |
| Crime Victimisation Survey | CAPI | 8,000 |
| Labour Force Survey | CAPI | 150,000 |
| Car Use Panel | CATI | 8,500 |
| Consumer Sentiments Survey | CATI | 24,000 |
| Social‐Economic Panel | CATI | 5,500 |
| School Career Survey | CATI | 4,500 |
| Mobility Survey | CATI/CADI | 20,000 |
| Budget Survey | CADI | 2,000 |
In the middle of the 1990s, the MS‐DOS operating system on microcomputers was replaced by Windows. This marked the start of the use of graphical user interfaces. Early versions of the Internet browser Internet Explorer were included in this operating system.
Blaise 4 was the first production version of Blaise for Windows released in 1998. When more and more people and companies were connected to the Internet, web surveys became a popular mode of data collection among researchers. The main reasons of this popularity were the high response speed, the possibility to provide feedback to respondents about the meaning of questions and possible errors, and the freedom for the respondents to choose their own moment to fill in the questionnaire.
The graphical user interface offered many more possibilities for screen layout. Figure 1.10 gives an example of a screen of the Blaise 4 CAPI program.
Since respondents are familiar with browsers from all their other activities on the Internet, there was no need to explain the graphical user interface.
The possibility to conduct web surveys was included in version 4.6 of Blaise released in 2003. The respondent completes the questionnaire online allowing continuous interaction between the computer of the respondent and the software on the Internet server.
The Internet questionnaire is divided into pages. Each page may contain one or more questions. After the respondent has answered all questions on a page, the answers are submitted to the Internet server. The answers are checked; a new page is returned to the respondent. The contents of this page may depend on the answers to previous questions.
Figures 1.11 and 1.12 show an example of the same page of a web survey when using Blaise 5. In this case, the page contains only one question. The first page will be displayed when using a tablet, and the second page will be displayed when using a smartphone.
Figure 1.10 The screen of a CAPI program in Blaise 4
Figure 1.11 The screen of a Blaise 5 web survey on a tablet
Figure 1.12 The screen of a Blaise 5 web survey on a smartphone
The Blaise 5 system implements a number of source code features (Languages, Modes, Roles, and SpecialAnswers) that specifically address challenges listed above. It also implements a cross‐platform layout designer, templates, and cross‐platform settings that handle presentation and operability issues. Finally, Blaise 5 allows the institute to combine these features in as many ways as suits its survey program and population.
1.4 Summary
Web surveys are a next step in the evolution process of survey data collection. Collecting data for compiling statistical overviews is already very old, almost as old as mankind. All through history, statistics have been used by rulers of countries to take informed decisions. However, new developments in society always have had their impact on the way the data were collected for these statistics.
