Time Use Survey
Coding and Processing Time Use Data
What Needed To Be Coded And
Processed
Everything except the diary data came back
electronically on interviewer laptops
So, we only had to
- capture the paper diaries, and
- code the responses for activity, who for, who with,
travel, non-profit-organisation, ethnicity, industry
and occupation
Time Use Survey
The Diary Processing Team
First
- here is
a picture
of our
diary
processing
team
The Diary Processing Team
Was in existence for 12 months,
and
There were 3 roles in this team
- Team Leader
- Quality Assurer (2 people)
- Data Processor (about 13 people)
The Data Processor Role
When capturing a diary for the first time, the data processor
- marked-up the paper diary into “episodes”, then
- entered each diary into the system as a list of episodes
The Quality Assurer Role involved
answering queries from data processors, and maintaining a written
record of answers to queries
recording potential new entries for the activity codefile
reviewing each double-captured diary and either
- selecting the correct capture to be saved, or
- creating a hybrid diary by either combining correct episodes from
either the first or second diary or creating new episodes
maintaining a written record of each data processor’s common errors,
and feeding those back to the data processor weekly, and
meeting regularly with Team Leader and subject matter experts to
- agree on new rules for diary processing
- agree on new entries for the codefile, and
- agree on changes to double-capture rates for each data processor
The Team Leader Role included
Daily Tasks
- answering queries from the team
- allocating households for diary capture
- selecting households for the double capture of diaries
- flagging bad diaries as non-response
Weekly Processes
- loading an updated codefile to the processing system
- viewing the monitoring reports to see how team is progressing
- adding new rules for diary processing and ensuring all the team knew
all the rules
- adding new synonyms to the codefile and ensuring all the team knew l
about all the new synonyms
Ongoing Processes
- adding new users to the system, or changing user details
- selecting the double-capture rate for each data processor
The Data Processor Role
Capturing The Diary
And
Coding The Activity
The Data Processors
- Marked-up The Paper Diary Into “Episodes”,
and then
- Entered Those Episodes Into The System
We defined an episode as any period in time where
- all activities
- the who for,
- the location and
- the who with
were the same
The Data Processor Role
More
Detail On Capturing Episodes
Activity coding:
rules for entering the text string…
The text of the activity was entered in simple present tense, and in the
singular. For example:• Drove to shop = Drive to shop
• Dress Children = Dress Child
AND
• A person’s name (say John) – was changed to the relationship with
the respondent
• Spelling mistakes were corrected.
Activity coding:
it is about finding the right “synonym”
The data processor enters a text string for the activity, and then
the system displays a list of possible classification synonyms
that could match that text string.
We defined a ‘synonym’ as a probable survey response and
lists of synonyms are stored with the classification category to
which they belong. Synonym lists are used for creating codefiles
for processing survey responses.
Activity coding: primary and secondary activities
Activities that were entered in the first column of the diary had to
be entered as the first (or primary) activity
If there were multiple activities in the second column it was not
important what order they were entered unless one was an
“available for care” activity
Some episodes in the paper diary had simultaneous activities
that could not be done at the same time:for example, having a shower and getting dressed
- if this happened then the activity was split into separate
activities of equal time
Activity coding: “available for care”
It is a result of the diary question
‘were you responsible for anyone who could not be left alone’
It is marked by interviewers in the left-hand column of the diary
It was coded as the activity of either
‘available for childcare’ or ‘available for care of an adult’
We also coded with this the appropriate ‘who for’ category from
what column was marked in the diary
It had to be coded as a secondary activity.
Activity coding: “childcare”
Almost all activities related to children come into the childcare
category
• The activity code should start with ‘32’
It included
talking, playing and transporting children
Children are defined as aged 0-13 for our Time Use survey
Activity coding: “travel”
Each major group in the classification has an associated travel
category
The category depends on where the respondent is travelling to
For example,
drive to work
is
‘travel associated with labour force activity’ 21811
Activity Coding: Internet Usage Activities
Any activity on the internet must have ‘internet’ in the synonym
Examples on internet usage synonyms:
• Internet banking 33215
• Check emails on internet 42311
• Watch YouTube over internet 44111
Coding “who for”
Is only used when the activity code starts with a 3 – it is for
committed time
The default code is ‘own household (including self) nfd’
The default code will often include activities such as household
shopping, cleaning, cooking and laundry
The rule was to use the default code unless the interviewer had
written a code next to the activity, or the activity was childcare
If The “Who For” Is A
Not-For-Profit Organisation
The
not-for-profit
organisation
was entered as it is
written in the diary
Coding “Who With”
The Who with Categories Were:Alone
Family I live with
Family I don’t live with
Other people I know
People I don’t know
The Data Processor Role
The Double Entry Of Diaries
The Double Entry Process
When entering a diary for the second time, the data processor
- checked the existing mark-up of the paper diary into
“episodes”, then
- entered the diary into the system in the same way as for the
first entry
All the diaries for any new data processor in the team were
double-captured,
then, as the data processor’s accuracy rate improved, the
double-capture rate was dropped, first to 25%, then to 10%.
Coding and Processing Time Use Data
Getting Quality Data
It Is Essential To Start With
A Good Quality Codefile For
Coding The Activity Classification
The diary coding team needs to start with the best codefile that can be put
together.
If the diary processing team starts with a poor quality codefile they may just
force responses into incorrect codes, and the result will be poor quality data
For the Statistics NZ 2009-10 survey, the first version of the activity codefile
was put together by combining:1. the codefile from the Statistics NZ 1998-99 Time Use Survey, and
2. the updates to that codefile recorded during the March 2009 Field Test,
and
3. the codefile from the latest Australian Time Use Survey
Many entries in the 3 codefiles listed above needed to be rewritten to fit in
with the our new classification of activity, and this took a lot of time. But we
did start diary coding with a very good list of all the activities that New
Zealanders might record in their diaries
Make Sure There Is A Good Process
For Agreeing On Updates,
And
Frequent Updates Of The Activity Codefile
Any codefile of activity quickly becomes out-of-date when a large team
are using it.
And once the codefile becomes out-of-date the data processors may
just force responses into incorrect codes in order to get through their
work, and the result will be poor quality data.
Start With A Good Process For Agreeing On The Rules For
Dealing With All The Situations That Will Be Recorded In The Diaries,
And Update Those Rules Often
The data processors always had many queries about how to capture various
combinations of activity, and “who for”, and “who with”, that they were finding
in diaries
Capturing diary data is not very intuitive – there needs to be a lot of rules to
cover the situations that will be found, and
It is impossible to record all the rules before the diary capture starts – there is
no way to know in advance many of the tricky situations that will be found
So, it is worth putting the effort into building a very good process for
maintaining the rules in order to get quality data
Thank you
非常感谢