Using checkboxes for categorical variables is a common way for censuses and surveys to quickly get data onto a paper form and scanned into a data file. Enumerators do not have to translate responses into numbers, and scanners can more easily recognize checked boxes than handwritten characters. These checkboxes need to be converted into single variables with single responses. But what do you do when there is more than one checked box, either due to enumerators not understanding how to complete the question or due to scanners reading stray marks as checked boxes?

When converting checkbox variables into a single variable, there are two basic methods for correcting multiple checks: hotdeck between two marked boxes or determine an order of likelihood. If three or more boxes are marked, the edits become more complicated and, due to the small probability of such occurrences, one can either write complicated edits or the converted variable can be set to blank and edited later using more detailed content edits.

Before converting multiple checkbox variables into a single variable, one must first check the number of boxes marked. This can be done by counting the number of individual checkbox variables. Then the conversion coding will be done based on the number of checked boxes. If only one box is checked, the new variable can easily be created without any special methods to determine the value.

Assuming that the checkbox variables have a value of 1 if checked and 0 if not checked, one can count the number of marked boxes like so:

Using a Hotdeck

Hotdecking is a simple way to estimate the value of a variable based on the checked boxes and on related variables. In the example below, in cases when two boxes are checked, the selection of which of the two values will be used for the new variable is determined from the roofing material. The hotdeck array has two dimensions: the first for each combination of the two checked boxes, and the other for the roofing material. When there are no checked boxes, then the new variable is left blank, to be handled by later edits. When one box is checked, the new variable is coded according to the checked box and the hotdeck is updated based on each combination of two checked boxes and on the roofing material. If two boxes are checked, then the new variable is coded based on the hotdeck using the given combination of checked boxes and the roof type.

Question: Type of Dwelling?
Answers: Separate, Apartment, Joint/Barrack House
Conversion Method: Hotdeck based on roofing material

Order of Likelihood

In a series of responses, it may be decided that certain responses are more likely than others. When multiple boxes are checked, the predetermined more likely response will be recoded as the actual response. In the example below, enumerators may mistakenly select more than one source of drinking water if the household has more than one source. However, the enumerators were instructed to select only the most "modern" water source, so the responses were prioritized in the order that they appear, with the exception of tubewell. Thus, if tubewell and any other response were selected, the new variable is set to tubewell, and this recoding priority continues with tap, then well, and so on.

Question: Main Source of Drinking Water?
Answers: Tap, Tubewell/Deep Tubewell, Well, Pond, River/Ditch/Canal, Others
Conversion Method: Recode with priority (tubewell, tap, well, etc.)

If conversions like this are often being made, the code in the numChecks = 1 and numChecks = 2 sections can be combined in a reusable function.

As mentioned in my previous post, Unicode support (and thus internationalization) will be a great addition to CSPro, coming out in the next half year. After that, the development team plans to focus on the CAPI (computer assisted personal interviewing) world. CSPro currently supports a very basic version of CAPI, but only for Windows platforms. With the proliferation of Android devices, as well as the upcoming Windows 8 tablets, CSPro must adapt to this new world of enumeration.

The world of small-scale surveys may not change dramatically, but the impact of technology on censuses is huge. This is a photo from an East African country that recently conducted a census. The warehouse in this photo stores all of the census forms and requires many workers to operate:

What if an EA were not in the final set ... how easy would it be to find in a mountain of forms? Imagine a world in which all data collection is conducted on a phone or a tablet and immediately sent to the operation headquarters. Data editing would be minimized and the time from collection to publication could effectively be cut to almost zero. Such a world will be an exciting one.

To all CSPro users around the world, the CSPro development team wishes you a happy holiday season. I have been fortunate this year to have had the chance to work on CSPro data processing with users in Armenia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, and Paraguay. Add in the hundreds of users who have emailed with questions, and CSPro users add up to a nice community. I hope that this website, and increased content next year, will help you fulfill your needs.

2012 should be a good year for CSPro, first with the addition of Unicode support, and then with steps towards the future of data entry, with focus on Android and other handheld development.

When CSPro has an interface for a tool, I suggest that you use the interface as much as possible, but on occasion a user might want to write code for more advanced functionality. One such example is when writing code for advanced export operations.

The CSPro help documents include some information on the export statement, but I often forget the syntax or what exactly the parameters should be. Fortunately, now with CSPro 4.1.002, a feature of the Export Data tool allows you to view the code that powers the export. By selecting Options -> Copy Logic to Clipboard, you can then take the export logic and insert it in the batch application of your choosing. This is a nice way to quickly get the basic export code needed and then you can build off of that.

For an example of a batch export that uses a lookup file, imagine that I have a data file describing stores and their customers. One of the attributes of a customer record is a country code that describes where the customer lives. When exporting the names of the customers, I do not want the two-letter country code, but the full name of the country. Using this list of country codes as a lookup file, I would go into the export tool, select the fields that I want to export, and then after copying the logic to the clipboard I would see code like this:

I would insert this code into a new batch application, add my lookup file code, and I would end up with something like this:

This feature in the Export Data tool vastly simplified my task, allowing me to focus on the lookup file programming, rather than the syntax of the export statement. My exported file now contains data from two files:

This is the input file:

Download this example.

In CSPro 4.1.002, you can customize the menus of the data entry application, CSEntry, to change the menu options to be in the language of your choice, as long as the language can be represented in ASCII characters (most European languages). In the future, when CSPro supports Unicode, all language scripts will be supported.

To override the default text options, you must create a file called csentry.menu and place it either in the Program Files\CSPro 4.1\ folder, or in the folder where the PFF file for your application is located. This file has a format that is easy to follow. For example, to override the File menu text, you would place this text in the file:

To add shortcut keys, place an ampersand before the shortcut letter. For example:

Placing the file in the Program Files\CSPro 4.1\ folder means that it will affect every single data entry application run on that machine. Alternatively, placing it in a folder with the PFF allows you to have different menus for different users.

Soon on this site I will post French and Spanish language menus on the Tools page. For now, if you would like to create your own menus, use this template file.