TADEQ: A Tool for the Documentation and Analysis of Electronic Questionnaires

National Statistical Institutes (NSI¿s), research institutes, and commercial marketing research organisations are more and more using computer-assisted interviewing (CAI) systems for collecting survey data. A computer program that guides respondents through the questionnaire and checks the answers on the spot replaces the traditional paper questionnaire. The growing possibilities of computer hardware and software have made it possible to develop very large, and complex electronic questionnaires. Unfortunately, it also has become more and more difficult for developers, interviewers, supervisors, and managers to keep control of the content and structure of CAI instruments. Within a 4th Framework project of the EU, research has been carried out aimed at developing a tool to make a readable and understandable presentation of an electronic questionnaire. The output of this tool serves to document (on paper, or electronically in hypertext form) an electronic questionnaire in a user-friendly way. It not only provides a useful documentation of the interviewing instrument, but also helps to analyse the questionnaire, and report possible sources of problems in its structure.