This article is accompanied by sample forms and attachments saved in this folder.
1. Introduction
Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (ACASI) empowers respondents to interact with survey questions through a digital interface, using audio to guide them throughout the process. This approach allows respondents to independently navigate and respond to survey questions, ensuring a confidential and private experience. This can have a range of benefits including improved accessibility for respondents across language and literacy barriers. Additionally, more honest answers (because no one is asking the questions or watching the answers) can be recorded which are free of enumerator bias.
You can build user-friendly ACASI workflows using SurveyCTO’s existing features. The sample workflow in this article showcases some of SurveyCTO’s powerful features that can be easily adapted to specific project needs.
This use case covers the following sections:
Note: This workflow is optimized for Android. Some features might not work properly with iOS.. |
2. Deploy the workflow now!
Click below to view this workflow in the Hub and install it on your server.
Advanced users can find the sample workflow files in this folder. For help with manual deployment, check out our support article Deploying form definitions and server datasets. |
3. Overview
In this workflow, you will be able to:
Practice responding to survey questions using the interface of a digital device |
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Receive feedback when a wrong choice is selected |
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Repeat each practice question until the correct answer is selected |
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Provide your feedback on the usability of the ACASI method |
The workflow is composed of two main parts:
A practice module for respondents to learn to use mobile devices to take the survey |
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A self-response module where respondents can answer real survey questions |
To be able to effectively test this workflow you can follow these outlined tasks:
- Follow the audio instructions on using the survey interface components to respond to different types of questions
- Respond to the self-response module questions using the audio instructions and visual aids
4. Workflow components
Generate Audio Files of Survey Elements |
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As mentioned earlier, ACASI survey questions and choices are delivered in audio files. So an audio file needs to be generated per field. These audio files should be specified in the media:audio parameter of the corresponding fields. Refer to the "Form field properties" section later in this article for best practices for setting up field properties for ACASI forms.
Another important aspect to consider when generating audio files is selecting the right tool to effectively convey survey elements in audio format is crucial in the successful design process of ACASI survey. Recording audio files with a human voice allows the maximum level of customization in ensuring that all the survey elements are effectively delivered to the respondents. Be sure to quality-control the process of recording the audio of each question, minimizing background noise, and ensuring good levels, and the accuracy of each recording. You may need some professional support. TTS (Text-To-Speech) was used to generate audio for this example. TTS platforms are more cost-effective (even free!) and time-saving tools compared to human voice recording, as you can generate an audio version of your survey questions in real time. There are many open-source TTS platforms that you can use to easily convert field labels into audio. However, most of these platforms only allow non-commercial and personal use of their products under free tier options. Mozilla's Speech synthesiser demo is an open-source platform that doesn’t have such restrictions and there are several voice options with different accents per language. Users can also personalize the voice speed and pitch. Here’s the Speech synthesiser setup information - Rate: 0.8, Pitch: 1, Voice: Samantha(en-US).
Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software. You can use this tool to record real voices or the audio generated using the TTS platform. Audacity was used to record and edit audio from Mozilla's TSS platform. As all the survey content will be delivered in audio, it’s important to properly name and reference the files throughout the form, and any changes to field names should be seamlessly reflected on the file names. The file names should contain the following information:
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Generate Images for Choices |
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In ACASI surveys, images are used along with audio instructions to help respondents respond to questions. When designing the images as choices in ACASI, it’s important to take into account the following:
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Practice Module |
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The purpose of this module is to help respondents with low digital literacy learn to use digital devices to take the survey on their own.
The sample practice module has the following features:
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Form Field Properties |
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In the sample workflow, the following field properties are used for enhanced user experience in the ACASI survey:
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Source material
Survey questions used in the sample form are from the sexual health module from the UNAIDS report(title: “Knowledge, Attitude and Practices in Sexual Behaviour and HIV/AIDS in Belize”, page 104 - 106).
Workflow Component Files Click on the section to access the files. |
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Forms
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5. Customization and improvements
SurveyCTO has endless possibilities, so this workflow is only the beginning. Feel free to modify and expand on this workflow to fit your own needs. Here are some tips on what you can add:
- The survey tab of the sample form shouldn’t have labels in the text format except for the guidelines for the enumerators. This is because the survey contents are provided only through audio and images, so that third parties cannot tell what’s going on with the device when the respondent is taking a survey. However, it can be harder to build a form where the fields do not have self-explanatory labels. A tip to effectively manage this is just working on the survey tab as usual with the questions in the labels. After it’s completed, duplicate the label column and name the duplicated column “labels_hidden”. Then delete the texts of the labels column on the survey tab (do not remove the labels header though). That way, you’ll always have a copy of the original label texts with full content that you can refer to whenever you need to make changes.
- The above method is not necessary when it comes to the text labels for the choices on the choices tab. For select_one questions with “quickcompact-#” appearance that has more than one choice, text labels of the choices get replaced with the images on SurveyCTO Collect, which makes the images ‘buttons’.
- Currently, group labels and repeat group labels cannot be hidden on Collect. On the web form, you can hide them by selecting “OFF” on the Show location within groups option on the form settings section on the Collect tab on the server. In order to ensure the maximum privacy, use generic names that are not representative of the groups and repeat groups on the survey tab,
- This sample doesn’t technically cater to a low literacy population, given the use of integer fields. There’d be ways of using visual choice lists to get a rough sense of quantity and number using visual symbols and clear audio descriptions to better cater to low-literacy populations.
- For sensitive topics, there should be a preamble that checks whether the respondent and interviewer have enough privacy and what to do if privacy is compromised.
- Think about providing respondents with headphones during the survey to ensure their privacy.
- On topics that are a risk for the respondent (such as intimate partner violence), far more stringent protocols should be established to protect respondents.
- In order to guarantee privacy and ensure honest answers, you can make the questions disappear right after the respondents answer the questions. You can learn how to implement this workflow and also its pros and cons to this approach in our support article Is it possible to hide answers in a form?.
- Encryption should be used to at least hide the respondents' identity in the data (if it is being collected) in the case of sensitive questions. Check out our support article How to encrypt a form to learn more.
- As mentioned above, respondents’ context should be taken into consideration in designing ACASI surveys in order to make the survey accessible. Make sure to test ACASI features throughout the design process. Especially for the practice module, test images, audio, and mobile device interface with the target population during the design phase and make adjustments to reflect the test results. And then test again. Repeat this process until the desired results are achieved.
6. Bibliography
- Surveying on Sensitive Topics: Using Audio Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing
- MAKING MODERN SLAVERY PREVALENCE STUDIES COUNT (ACCURATELY)
- Coloring for Colorblindness
- LEARN HOW GFEMS AND ICF ARE USING AUDIO COMPUTER-ASSISTED SELF-INTERVIEWING (ACASI) IN MODERN SLAVERY STUDIES TO REDUCE SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIAS
- Survey questions used in this sample workflow are from the sexual health module from the UNAIDS report (title: “Knowledge, Attitude and Practices in Sexual Behaviour and HIV/AIDS in Belize”, page 104 - 106)
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