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The principles of questionnaire documentation are as follows:
0. Docuentation must make sense
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Principle 0 must be maintained at all times. Ensuring the documentation makes sense should be the basis for all decisions made based on the principles below. Note that this does not refer to correcting mistakes in the questionnaire, but choosing the best method in which the questionnaire is documented. For example, when there are two options for condition text, the text which refers to the true branch is used, and the alternative is usually added as a statement. However, in cases were the second statement only contains the direction (with or without an arrow) it does not have any meaning. In example 1 below, 'Go to Section D on page 30' would be ignored, because it is not clear which answer it refers to without the arrow, and does not make sense on its own.
Example 1 My Son/Daughter’s Health and Behaviour (ALSPAC)
1. Maintain and do not alter the semantic meaning of the questionnaire
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Principle 1 must also be maintained at all times. CLOSER intends that the metadata documented is capable of being shared with other DDI compliant organisations, hence principle 1 ensures that CLOSER produces consistent and comparable metadata. The practice of keeping to principle 1 requires decisions to be made as to what questionnaire elements provide meaning. For example it was decided that bold font provided no semantic meaning and therefore CLOSER is not documenting the weight of the font. The order of multiple choice options was deemed relevant and therefore special care is taken to preserve the order within the documentation. The three following principles were conceived purposefully to give structure and guidance as to how the first principle should be followed at all times and in all situations. In example 2 below we can see that “Does the mother care for children at home ... ?” is in bold. We do not document this, however we do document that the order of the code list is Yes, No, No known.
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Example 2 Birth Questionniare (BCS)
2. Do not correct the questionnaire
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Principle 2 should only be broken when doing so maintains principles 0 and 1. It is fairly common to find what seem like mistakes in the questionnaire design; these can range from typos (e.g. 'martial status' instead of 'marital status') to impossible condition logic. Any mistakes within the questionnaire could have altered the data being collected, and therefore it is important to avoid correcting the metadata. Also, what seems like a mistake always has the potential of being done purposefully. In the case of a typo, the misspelt word can be aliased within the search engine to allow effective searching (e.g. searches looking for the 'marital', would also find aliased questions with the word 'martial').
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Example 3 Questionniare My Little Boy/Girl (ALSPAC)
3. Only record what is contained within the questionnaire
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Principle 3 should only be broken when doing so maintains principles 0, 1 and 2. There are situations where the questionnaire does not provide all of the information to document meaningfully or to generate valid DDI. However, it is important to refrain from adding additional information that is not within the questionnaire. An example of when not to add to the metadata is when a questionnaire asks:
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Example 4 Questionnaire Teacher Paper Questionnaire (MCS)
4. Do not allow the data recorded (i.e. the variables) to inform the metadata archiving
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Principle 4 is the least significant principle. Whilst documenting the structure, flow and intent of a questionnaire, it may seem harmless to consult the collected data in order to better understand the questionnaire being documented. This practice, however, should also be avoided. The aim of the ingest programme is to record the instruments used for data collection as accurately as possible. Using information that was created after the collection event alters the perception and understanding of the instrument.
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