Work in progress
Key input considerations
Numeric answers are spaces for interviewees to add a number within a questionnaire. They are either Integer or Float. Key considerations are:
- Integers are whole numbers only.
- Floats allow a decimal place.
- Many can be covered by a generic field such as ‘How many’ or ‘Age’.
- Formats, minimums and maximums matter so ‘Number (Integer, Min: 0, Max: 10)’ is not the same as either ‘Number (Float, Min: 0, Max: 10)’ or ‘Number (Integer, Min: 0, Max: 20)’.
Numeric answers are used when the response to a question is a number. A numeric answer consists of a Label, Type, Numeric type and Min (Minimum) and Max (Maximum) values.
[add Archivist blank numeric creation box, when available]
For most numeric responses a ‘generic’ answer labelled ‘How many’ is used, with a Min value of 0 and the Max value left blank. The numeric type depends on the format of the response in the questionnaire. The numeric type ‘Float’ should only be used if the response in the question contains a decimal point or the response requires a fraction. If there is no decimal point in the numeric response, then the numeric type ‘Integer’ should be used. Regardless of whether the numeric type is integer or float, both are labelled ‘How many’.
Archivist answer input for 'How many' integer response:
The exception to this is if an integer and a float numeric type answer are needed for the same numeric response in the same questionnaire. In this case, separate answers are made for each numeric type, adding ‘I’ for integer and ‘F’ for float to the label. In the example below, the questionnaire contains questions with a ‘How many’ response with and without a decimal point.
Questionnaire: Initial Questionnaire (SWS) questions 7.4b and 8.4
The ‘how many’ response to question 7.4b contains a decimal point, while the response to 8.4 does not. Two ‘How many’ numeric answers are created, one with a numeric type of Integer and one with a numeric type of Float.
Archivist answer input:
How many Integer answer | How many Float answer |
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CADDIES doc view:
Numeric answers with specific labels
There are several types of numeric answers which are specifically labelled:
- Age-related numeric responses
- Physical measurements [Add link]
- Quantities (generally food-related) [Add link]
- Numeric responses with minimum and/or maximum values defined in the question text [Add link]
- Time period responses that are not input as Time/Date Duration answers [Add link]
Note: Specifically labelled answers are not created for distance (i.e. miles), single unit time responses (i.e. hours only, minutes only), and measurements without a defined length or size (i.e. days, nights, slices, cups, mugs, etc.).
Age-related numeric answers
Answers to ‘How old’ questions are entered as follows:
Label | Type | Numeric type | Min | Max | Usage |
Age | Numeric | Integer | 0 | Blank | How old in years only or year component of question asking age in years and months. Example |
Age in months | Numeric | Integer | 0 | Blank | How old with response in months only. Commonly seen in questionnaires for birth and pre-school life stages asking how old baby is with response expressed in only months. Example |
Months | Numeric | Integer | 0 | 11 | How old with response in years and months. Answer is multiple response with ‘Age’ for years component and ‘Months’ for months component of question. Example |