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Android Phone Training in Rwanda - Nutrition Survey in the camps
For the 3rd time, CartONG is training UNHCR field staff and deploying Android technology for a Nutrition Survey in the Refugee Camps. The android technology proves to be a very useful tool for data collection! This year only, UNHCR, with CartONG's support, will deploy this technology in at least 4 large scale camp surveys, mainly in Eastern Africa.
The general concept of using android technology for surveys is that all the questionnaires are coded into a numerical version and the questions come up one at a time as the enumerator goes through the survey. The benefits of using such a technology are high.
- First, it eases the enumerator's work as the question come up one at a time and irrelevant questions will automatically skipped based on the previous choice. ("If yes, did you seek assistance...").
- Second, it also makes the work of the survey supervisors easier since they have immediate access to the data and as some validations are coded within the survey, some common mistakes are avoided.
- Third, the data can be downloaded directly from the phones to the computers and no additional data entry is required.
- Last but not least, enumerators enjoy working with this new technology and are keen on adapting it and proving that indeed they are able to master the new technology, which is an important ingredient for a successful survey.
In Rwanda, we started the training last week of April and after only a few hours spent with the phones, all enumerators were navigating through the questionnaires very easily. Their first day in a real camp setting (on the 30th) was a little challenging at first, since nutrition surveys require a high level of organization and larger survey teams than generic household surveys. Mastering the phone technology is almost the easiest part.
If you want to learn more about how android technology is used for nutrition surveys, please checkout our project wiki page.
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