Abstract
Recent advances in handheld computer hardware and software may provide alternatives to paper-based data collection methods. The authors compared data collected with paper forms to data collected with handheld computer-based forms in a field observation study of alcohol purchase attempts at 47 community festivals in a large metropolitan area. Agreement between data collected with paper forms and data collected with handheld computers was greater than 95%. Computer-based forms handled branching patterns better and yielded data that were immediately available for analyses. Paper forms handled written comments better. Handheld computers are a feasible alternative to paper forms for field data collection.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 165-178 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Evaluation Review |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2003 |
Keywords
- Data collection
- Data quality
- Handheld computer
- PDA
- Palm