Automated Survey Instrument Documentation, Analysis

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop technology to automate the creation of survey instrument documentation, to analyze the complexity of survey instruments, and to automate the testing of survey instruments. Software that enables researchers to better visualize, analyze, and test survey instruments will result in higher quality survey data and increased productivity, thus benefiting social and behavioral research. The specific aims of Phase I are to create a formal requirements document that will detail the complete scope of the software to be developed, to create a formal architectural design for the software, and to implement a prototype application containing the core functionality of the proposed software. Phase II of the project will build on the results of Phase I to develop a complete application suite with advanced instrument analysis and testing functionality. Further in the future, the technology will be expanded for use in more advanced survey research software. The same technologies may also be applied to other data-centric research activities, for example, the design and collection of data from medical records. The rise of computer-assisted survey technologies has enabled social and behavioral researchers to create larger and more complex survey instruments than was previously possible. This additional complexity introduces new challenges in the collection and analysis of survey data. A new generation of survey research software will greatly improve the ability of researchers to collect and understand high quality data.