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 Check s on internet 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 survey, the first version of the activity codefile was put together by combining:- 1. the codefile from the Statistics NZ 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