Question types
The interview is built from 11 question types which differ in either or both of two ways:
the kind of information they capture
how you enter your response.
The following notes cover in detail the characteristics of each question type.
In the case of every question type which is completed by keying-in text or numbers (as opposed to choosing from a list, for example), you can undo a new entry you have started (or the changes to a previously completed entry which you are now editing) by tapping <Esc>.
Text
stores up to 255 arbitrary characters (i.e. any printable keyboard character is accepted); 255 characters correspond to about 3 lines of typing on an A4 page.
the size of the text box on the interview form gives an indication of the scale of the response thought to be appropriate in a typical case; however, the text box will scroll to allow the editing and reading of a longer entry
when you are typing into a text box you can open an editing window by keying <Shift + F2> – this is especially helpful if the text box is not big enough to show all your text at once
if the length of your text entry exceeds the allowed maximum, then you are prompted to deal with the situation as described at handling of overlong text entries
deletion of the entire content of a text entry is intercepted by a request for confirmation; should deletion proceed, the question is reverted to the unanswered status
the 'Don't know' attribute is available for Text questions – see Don't know
Numeric
stores numeric values (positive or negative, of more or less any magnitude)
the minimum and maximum acceptable values are set for each question, and values outside those limits are rejected – but we have found that exceptional values do arise, so the limits are currently ‘generous’
whether or not responses must be integral (whole number as opposed to decimal fractions such as 3.4) is set for each question
deletion of a numeric entry is intercepted by a request for confirmation; should deletion proceed, the question is reverted to the unanswered status
the 'Don't know' attribute is available for Numeric questions – see Don't know
Date
stores a date consisting of day, month and year
the earliest and latest acceptable dates are set for each question, and values outside those limits are rejected – but we have found that exceptional values do arise, so the limits are currently ‘generous’
deletion of a Date entry is intercepted by a request for confirmation; should deletion proceed, the question is reverted to the unanswered status
the 'Don't know' attribute is available for Date questions – see Don't know
Fuzzy Date
fuzzy date questions distinguish themselves from standard questions requiring a date by having a yellow border around the answer control
stores a date which may be incompletely known in dd/mm/yyyy format
where a date is not fully known, a fuzzy date will accept as much of the date as is known, and will then ‘complete’ the date using question marks for missing information; this behaviour is best illustrated by a few examples:
| entry made | entry as expanded by the 3di |
|---|---|
? | ??/??/???? |
2 | ??/??/2002 |
83 | ??/??/1983 |
1983 | ??/??/1983 |
11/2002 | ??/11/2002 |
3/5/1998 | 03/05/1998 |
as these entries imply, the ‘finer detail’ of a date cannot be entered when the ‘grosser detail’ is not known – thus neither 18/??/1974 nor ??/25/???? would be acceptable; in practice, it is very rare for an uncertain date to be partially known other than in this hierarchical way – for example, parents do not recall the day of the month when they don’t know the month, or the month when they don’t know the year (with the exception of events associated with birthdays or other anniversaries; but even then recording the day or month is unlikely to be useful in the absence of the year)
some Repeating Answer questions present records ordered by the entered fuzzy dates; whenever a fuzzy date is entered whose order is ambiguous relative to the dates in other records, the system will prompt for an instruction on where to ‘place’ the date – parents can almost always order events, even when they know not even their years
the year of a fuzzy date must lie in the range 1949 to 10 years beyond the current year
if you economise on effort by entering the year in the abbreviated ways illustrated then values from 0 to (10 + the tens part of the current year) are interpreted as in the 21st century; other values upwards from 49 are interpreted as years in the 20th century (see the examples above) – of course you can always enter “1983” rather than “83”, or “2002” rather than “2”, if you prefer
Time (or duration) in hours and minutes
stores a time or duration using the 24-hour notation
the earliest and latest acceptable times of day (or the shortest and longest durations) are set for each question, and values outside those limits are rejected – but we have found that exceptional values do arise, so the limits are currently ‘generous’
deletion of a Time entry is intercepted by a request for confirmation; should deletion proceed, the question is reverted to the unanswered status
the 'Don't know' attribute is available for Time questions – see Don't know
Age (or duration) in years and months
stores an age or duration in the form of years and months, each value chosen from a drop-down list
the youngest and oldest acceptable ages (or the shortest and longest durations) are set for each question, and values outside those limits are rejected – but the limits are currently ‘generous’
where an Age question has dependants, you will be asked after each change you make to either the year or the month whether the entry is complete: the system cannot know whether you have also a change to make to the other part of the age, and so cannot go ahead and deal with dependants or otherwise without your confirmation
the 'Don't know' attribute is available for Age questions – see Don't know
Don't know
not a free-standing question type, but a question attribute which has been applied to some instances of the foregoing question types (Text, Numeric, Date, Time and Age); it provides for the possibility that no answer is known
where 'Don't know' is a specified question attribute, the question appears exactly as it would have done otherwise, but is preceded by a ? 'Don't know' button whose selection disables the question. For example:
selecting a question’s ‘Don’t know’ button qualifies the question as answered
if a question has already been answered when 'Don't know' is selected, you are asked whether the intention really is to override the earlier response (confirmation leading to the loss of that response)
it’s possible to unset a ‘Don’t know’ button by clicking it a second time: the question’s standard answer control is then re-enabled and the question marked as unanswered
note that question types OptionGroup, Combo and ListMulti (see below) include 'Don't know' as a selectable response where it has seemed necessary – and so never appear with a separate 'Don't know' button
OptionGroup (radio buttons)
presents a selection of options from which only one may be chosen
displays each option above a 'radio button', the buttons being arranged in a single row on the screen
where 'Don't know' is an allowable response to the question, it is included as one of the selectable options
making a selection causes the question to be marked as answered; it cannot then revert to unanswered, because any other selection also constitutes an answer – except through the use of The shortcut menu
Combo
presents a selection of options from which only one may be chosen
displays the options in a drop-down list
where 'Don't know' is an allowable response to the question, it is included as one of the selectable options
making a selection causes the question to be marked as answered; it cannot then revert to unanswered, because any other selection also constitutes an answer – except through the use of The shortcut menu
ListMulti
presents a selection of options from which any number may be chosen
displays the options in a permanently visible list (as opposed to a dropdown list)
the option 'none applies' is automatically appended to the option set of a ListMulti question, and the option is given special handling: whereas any combination of other options may be chosen, selection of 'none applies' automatically clears any other selection; and if 'none applies' is already selected when another option is selected, 'none applies' is itself cleared
if 'Don't know' is your interviewee’s response to the question, the 'none applies' option should be used
note that because it can be difficult for a ListMulti to be exhaustive without also offering an unwieldy number of options, the last ListMulti option is often something like 'other - see below'; there is then a follow-up Text question in which you can enter further details; you can also use that text box to elaborate on other selections you have made from the list – for that reason, the 3di generally does not disable the follow-up question even though you have not included the ‘other – see below’ item in your selection
making a selection causes the question to be marked as answered; it cannot then revert to unanswered, because any other selection also constitutes an answer – except through The shortcut menu
Repeating Answer
Repeating Answer questions allow for the fact that some questions need to be repeated for each of a variable number of 'entities' (for example, for each of the children in a family) and may well comprise a series of items (thus for each child: surname, forename, date of birth, gender, and so on)
the system includes a question with Repeating Answers just once in the interview, but provides for the sets of answers a table to which records may be added, and in which each record captures answers to all the items about an entity (for example, a child); in most cases, a record corresponds to one row in the table; but there are instances of records with at least two rows
some items in a Repeating Answer record may be obligatory: if one of these is left blank when you attempt to move to another record, or to another interview question, or when you try to delete the record, an error message will tell you that something is missing – and you will have to enter the information before you can continue or abandon the editing of the record by tapping <Esc> once or twice so that the pencil icon in the record’s left margin disappears
similarly, some items in a Repeating Answer record may be unable to accept certain entries (for example, a date citing month 13 or having a two-digit year when four digits are expected): if one of these is incorrectly completed when you attempt to move to another record, or to another interview question, or when you try to delete the record, an error message will tell you that something is faulty – and you will have to correct your entry before you can continue, or else abandon the editing of the record by tapping <Esc> once or twice
to start a new record in a Repeating Answer question:
click into the empty record which appears below those you have completed
or click on the new record button (the asterisk) among the navigation buttons at the foot of the subform
or use the <Tab> key as described below in the last bullet relating to Repeating Answer questions
to abandon a record you have begun to complete in a Repeating Answer question, just tap <Esc> once or twice so that the pencil icon in the record’s left margin disappears
to delete a record from a Repeating Answer table, select the record by clicking over the margin at its left (the record’s margin will become highlighted) and tap <Delete>
a Repeating Answer question may not be overridden by 'Don't know'
because there may be no entities corresponding to a Repeating Answer question (e.g. no additional children in the family), such questions cannot be positively marked as not answered just because they have no entry; nor can they be reliably marked as done just because they have some entries (e.g. there might be further children); Repeating Answer questions are therefore provided with a Mark as done / Mark as to do button which toggles question status (and its own caption, of course)
it’s important to realise that clicking Mark as done for a Repeating Answer question in which you have made no entries makes a clear statement to the 3di – for example, that the child has “no OCD symptoms” or that “there are no other children in the family”
whereas in the body of the interview the <Tab> key moves you forward to the next question (and <Shift + Tab> moves you to the prior question), when you are in a Repeating Answer record these key presses move you from item to item (for example, from the Surname to the Forename). Keying <Tab> when you are in the last item in a record takes you to the first item in the next record. When you are ready to move to another interview question, you must click on the question text or the place for your answer (or use the Interview Explorer or Route Explorer if you want to move to a question you cannot see)
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