How the application works

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Standard question blocks

The document Standard Question Blocks for Social Survey CAI Applications provides the basic specifications and documentation for standard entry and exit questions that are available for use by all surveys. These questions are grouped into "blocks" and each block is programmed individually. The blocks include pre-defined question text and response categories that cannot be changed. Survey areas may select the blocks that they wish to include in their entry and exit components.

The following blocks are also called in the SLID entry and exit components (see Appendix 1):

Address questions

The address block includes all the question and interviewer instruction text necessary to gather a complete Canadian or U.S. address. Addresses outside Canada and the U.S. can also be gathered, but some information may have to be entered in fields not designed for collection of that information, e.g., the name of a country might be entered in the same field as the municipality.

Date questions

The date block has been programmed with full date information collected as three separate fields (in day/month/year order). This allows "don't know" and "refusal" to be entered for any or all of the fields, and also allows those fields containing numeric data to be validated. Naturally, only if all three of the fields contain numeric data will it be possible to validate them together.

It is possible to validate the entered date against other information, specifically a reference date. Survey areas must provide the reference date, and then a hard edit checking for consistency between the entered date and the reference date will be performed. If a reference date is not provided, the edit will not be performed.

Telephone number

Two standard blocks have been programmed to collect a telephone number. The North American telephone block gathers a 10-digit telephone number in two pieces, consisting of a three-digit area code and a seven-digit phone number. Validation of the area code field takes place before the seven-digit telephone number is collected, using a soft confirmation edit.