Do you get involved in designing data collection forms? The design
issues use skills from psychology and ergonomics but have clear
implications for data quality.
For example, millions of people are encouraged to participate this
weekend in the RSPB garden birdwatch http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/.
The data sheet has 20 common species to record - listed in alphabetic
order by columns. This seems pointless for both birdwatchers and
novices. Birdwatchers will be irritated Blue tit and Great tit are
arbitrarily separated. Novices will be confused because Blackbird, Crow
and Starling are separated and all pictured as similar size. Further
militating against data quality, the pictures show only male Blackbird,
House Sparrow and Greenfinch but a female Chaffinch. I've always
suspected a lot of Greenfinches get reported as "sparrows" and female
Blackbirds as "thrushes".
Thinking about the point of capturing data as the easiest place it gets
corrupted, are there rules of thumb you can cite for decreasing the
probability of error? More amusingly, examples like this that appear
almost designed to encourage wrong reporting?
Allan
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