3. How to read this document

This document is a written approximation of the CAI interview, or the “questionnaire”. The CAI process is as follows:

(a) A question appearing on the computer screen is read aloud to the respondent.
(b) The respondent’s answer is directly entered into the computer by the interviewer.
(c) Based on the answer given, and/or age or other flow criteria, the computer determines the next question to be asked and displays it on the screen

Question numbers: For each section, the question numbers refer to the actual numbers used in the collection application which appear on an interviewer’s computer screen. Bold text is read, as worded, by the interviewer. Instructions for the interviewer are preceded by the word, “INTERVIEWER” and are not read out loud to the respondent.

Naming conventions: Naming conventions were changed to conform to the standards for Statistics Canada social surveys.

Questions with
Q (e.g. EP_Q001) = question text read to a respondent
C (e.g. EP_C001) = internal check
N (e.g. EP_N035) = interviewer instructions
E (e.g. EP_E001) = interviewer instruction edit
? (e.g. ?DA_Q001) = F1 help available

Pre-fill items: Shown in square brackets [ ], are items specific to each respondent’s interview. The application inserts the relevant information into the question, making it simply a matter of reading for the interviewer. Pre-fill items include:

[respondent] – This is the first and last name of the household member to whom the questions refer. This is not necessarily the person who is talking to the interviewer.

[fname] - This is the first name of the household member to whom the questions refer. This is not necessarily the person who is talking to the interviewer

[current year] – This is the year during which the information is collected (2007).

[reference year] – This is the year for which the information is collected (2006).

[previous reference year] – This is the year prior to the reference year (2005).

[age] – This is the respondent’s age in years, calculated as of January 1 of the current year.

[years ago] – This is the number of years ago the respondent first started working.

[employer] – This is the employer referred to in the question. Questions may be asked for a maximum of six employers. In each case, the specific employer’s name is placed in the pre-fill item.

[class of worker] – Indicates whether the respondent is a paid worker, selfemployed or working in a family business without pay.

[type of work] – This is a short description of the respondent’s occupation or type of work performed, at last contact.

[industry] – This is a description of the industry of the employer as provided by the respondent.

[start date] and [end date] – Depending on the question, these refer to either the start and end dates of a specific job, of an unpaid absence, or a jobless spell.

[prefill from Empl.oldwage and Empl.oldwageu] – Wage reported previous year for respondent.

Headers: For some questions, important information is noted at the top of the screen. In this document, this information is given at the beginning of each section description.

Ranges: Hard ranges are specified for some of the questions. The hard range gives the highest and lowest acceptable response values. The system will not accept a number outside the range. For example, in CH_Q110 (number of employees supervised directly) a hard range of 1 - 995 exits. If the interviewer tries to enter a number greater than 995, the system will not accept this.

The soft range specifies an upper limit which, if exceeded, will result in a probe to confirm that the amount entered is correct. If it is correct, the interviewer can enter it as long as it does not exceed the hard range. For example, if the respondent states that the number of people supervised was 65, this exceeds the soft range of > 60. If confirmed as correct, the interviewer can enter this amount as it does not exceed the 995 upper limit of the hard range.

Dates: All dates are in DD/MM/YYYY format unless otherwise specified.