The principles of questionnaire documentation are as follows:
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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.
Example 2 BCS Birth Questionnaire
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Example 3 ALSPAC Questionnaire My Little Boy/Girl
3. Only record what is contained within the questionnaire
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Example 4 provides an example of where the metadata must be added in order to maintain Principle 1 is when a questionnaire uses an arrow to denote a condition.It is impossible to document an arrow literally and leaving it out of the documentation altogether changes the logical flow of the questionnaire and violates principle 0 of making sense. Therefore, text representing the arrow's meaning has to be added.
Example 4 MCS Questionnaire Teacher Paper Questionnaire
4. Do not allow the data recorded (i.e. the variables) to inform the metadata archiving
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The most common situation where breaking Principle 4 is valid is when Principles 2 or 3 must be broken. For example, in the situation where it is most appropriate to correct the questionnaire, it is obviously vital to check whether the mistake was intentional or not and if the mistake had a distinct effect on the collected data.
Example 5 BCS Birth Questionnaire
References
Poynter, W. and Spiegel, J. (2015) Protocol Development for Large-Scale Metadata Archiving using DDI-Lifecycle. IASSIST Quarterly, 39, 3, p.23-29.