Family Resources Survey 2003-04
The FRS questionnaire
The FRS was one of the first Government surveys to use Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). There are advantages to this over the traditional paper interviews, primarily:
- in-built checks for consistency can be made at the time of the interview,
- respondents are automatically routed only to those questions relevant to them,
- there is no need for a data input stage as the data are already in electronic form,
- questions with alternate wordings (e.g. is/was, his/her) can be automatically tailored to the situation,
- interviewers receive and transmit work via a modem in their own homes.
The questionnaire itself is divided into three parts. The first part is the household schedule which is addressed to one person in the household (usually the head of household, although other members are encouraged to be present) and which mainly asks household level information, such as relationship of individuals to each other, tenure and housing costs. Next is the individual schedule which is addressed to each adult in turn and asks questions about employment, benefits and tax credits, pensions, investments and other income. A final section goes on to ask the value of investments for relevant respondents.
To limit the length of the overall questionnaire, and to reduce the respondent burden of an overlong interview, FRS users have agreed to rotate off blocks of questions. 'Rotated' sections of the questionnaire will be asked every other year, rather than every year.
Rotated off for 2003-04 are "Travel to work". Rotated off for 2004-05 will be "NHS treatment" and "Vehicle ownership". "Consumer durables" was part of the rotated block of questions, but will be dropped from the survey in 2004-05.
Interviewers new to the FRS are briefed on the questionnaire and an annual re-briefing is given to all interviewers on changes to the questionnaire. Those who have been working on the survey for some time also complete a written field report each year, describing their experiences with particular parts of the questionnaire, and commenting on how changes are received in the field.