Statements
Key Considerations
Statements are text which does not fulfil the criteria of any other questionnaire element.
More than one statement can be added.
Statements are positional and not owned by questions.
Text within a questionnaire becomes a statement when it does not fulfil the criteria of any other element (Sequence, Instruction, Condition or Question). They are independent of questions.
Statements can be found throughout the questionnaire. Their position in Archivist depends on where the text appears in the questionnaire. For example, if it appears before the question literal, then it needs to be input before the question in Archivist (see Example 1). Similarly, if the statement appears after the question literal, then it needs to be input after the question in Archivist (see Example 2).
Important contextual information from statements can be concatenated to question literals, as questions must include relevant context where applicable (see the Concatenating statement section and Concatenation in question literals for examples).
The label can reference questions or sequences depending on their location and content (see Statement labels and Construct a label for more information and examples).
Example 1
Questionnaire: ALSPAC My Son/Daughter’s Health
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_00_msdh):
Example 2
Questionnaire: NCDS Medical Questionnaire 1974
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (ncds_74_mq):
Statement labels
Statement labels are a way to understand the position of a statement within a questionnaire. In order for statements to have a unique label, they need to refer to a question or a sequence. If there is a statement connected to an entire sequence, then it needs to be labelled after the sequence and it always needs to be numbered with a roman numeral (_i) at the end, even if there is only one (see Example 3). For more guidance on labeling statements, please see Construct a Label.
Example 3
Questionnaire: ALSPAC My Son/Daughter’s Health and Behaviour
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_00_msdh):
Concatenating statements
Although not done frequently, statements can also be concatenated with other statements, such as in Example 4. In this example, the statements “RMORE Prefilled to ‘1 YES’” and “FIRST LOOP” both provide essential information to understand what the subsequent statements in the bullet points (seen in the questionnaire layout view) are referring to. Therefore, statements are only concatenated when they include important context to help the documentation of the questionnaire make sense.
Example 4
Questionnaire: NCDS Age 50 CAI Questionnaire
Questionnaire layout (ncds8_sc):
CLOSER Discovery view (ncds8_sc):
Sometimes, there is important context in a statement that is relevant to a question. However, if the important context is repeated in the question literal, the text does not need to be concatenated to the question literal and can be entered as a statement. In example 5, important context about the “who” of the question (i.e. “you and your family”) is in the statement and the question literal, so “The next few questions are about you and your family” is added as a statement,
Example 5
Questionnaire: USoc Adult Self completion 2008
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist layout (us1_ysc):
Multiple statements
Some questionnaires have long continuous text, often at the beginning of a questionnaire explaining how to complete it, as shown in Example 6. In the Archivist view below, you will see that five separate statements have been entered. This is because separate statements are entered when there is a hard line break/carriage return in the questionnaire.
Example 6
Questionnaire: NSHD Final Interview with Mother 1961
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (nshd_61_iwm):
Statements and question text
Some questions contain text which can be split into statements and question text. When the text is continuous, deciding which parts are included in the question text and which parts are included in the statement can be tricky. In Example 7, the first paragraph contains text regarding what information the interviewer would like from the interviewee, so this is input as the question text. However, as the second paragraph does not provide such information, and it also does not contain text which the first paragraph is contextually dependent on, it is entered as a statement. Note that as the question text cannot be separated or split away from its response domain, the statement will appear after the question, and not just after the question text as shown in the questionnaire layout.
Example 7
Questionnaire: ALSPAC Food and Things
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (alspac_04_fat):
Statements and sequences
Statements can sometimes be mistaken for a Sequence, as in Example 8. However, the text ‘The next questions are about your opinions on the environment’ is entered as a statement because it does not fulfill the criteria of having a clear start and end.
Example 8
Questionnaire: USoc Adult self-completion 2008
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (us1_asc):
Statements and instructions
Some questions contain more than one instruction, which is not possible to enter into Archivist for paper questionnaires. Therefore, only one instruction is entered, and the remaining text is entered as statements, as shown in Example 9. The decision of choosing which text is entered as a statement and which as an instruction is usually left at the enterer's discretion. This is because the way instructions are used within questionnaires can vary greatly, and therefore it is difficult to apply a generic rule. Some salient features of instructions are that the text is often shorter, practically-orientated (in answering the question), and positioned closer to the response domain (see Interviewer Instructions for more information).
Example 9
Questionnaire: BCS Home and All That 1986
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (bcs_86_haat):
Combining statements
Some questionnaires have groups of statements close together, but they are not always entered as one statement because there is a hard line break/carriage return between them (see Example 6). Sometimes, there is a carriage return between two statements, but they are entered as one statement because of punctuation which links them together such as a semi-colon (Example 10).
Example 10
Questionnaire: NSHD Teacher's Questionnaire 1959
Questionnaire layout:
Archivist view (nshd_59_ts):