Questionnaire application
Nelson Fleet
Thanks for any tips.
Nelson
Bob Barrows
>Does anybody know of a questionnaire application posted to the web?
>
>Thanks for any tips.
>
Duane Hookom has one called "At your Survey" posted at
<http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/duanehookom/duanehookom.htm>
HTH,
Bob Barrows
Please reply to the newsgroup. My reply-to address is my "spam trap" and I don't check it very often.
PC Datasheet
You have probably already seen many. Have you ever gone to a
website where they ask you alot of questions like your name,
address, email address etc? That's a questionaire posted on the
web!
--
PC Datasheet
A Resource for Access and Excel Help
pcdat...@penn.com
www.pcdatasheet.com
· Design and basic development for new applications
· Additions, Modifications and "Fixes" for existing applications
· Mentoring for do-it-yourselfers who want guidance
· Complete application design and development
"Nelson Fleet" <road...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:86e34513.01100...@posting.google.com...
Nelson Fleet
> Hi Nelson:
>
> You have probably already seen many. Have you ever gone to a
> website where they ask you alot of questions like your name,
> address, email address etc? That's a questionaire posted on the
> web!
Thanks for your response. What I really meant to ask was: does
anybody know of a questionnaire implemented as an Access application
posted on the web for download. Even just the data model would be
very helpful. (I've found a number of them, in addition to the one
that I've been writing on my own.)
Nelson
Nelson Fleet
> On 4 Oct 2001 11:35:23 -0700, road...@aol.com (Nelson Fleet) wrote:
>
> >Does anybody know of a questionnaire application posted to the web?
> >
> >Thanks for any tips.
> >
> Duane Hookom has one called "At your Survey" posted at
> <http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/duanehookom/duanehookom.htm>
Bob,
This is EXACTLY what I was hoping to find! This is a great libarary
of stuff I can refer to for ideas and pointers. Much obliged, friend.
Nelson
Keri Hardwick
answers looks more like this:
SurveyId
QuestionId
Answer
rather than this:
SurveyId
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
...
Keri
"Nelson Fleet" <road...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:86e34513.01100...@posting.google.com...
Bob Barrows
Thank Duane - he did all the work :-)
Tom Mitchell
As someone who has fooled around with questionaires, but never done
anything serious with them, I understand the advantages of your
recommended table design. What I have never been able to figure out
is how to deal with the forms and reports that go with it. I have
thought about an unbound form/report with a class module, but the mere
thought of writing hundreds of get/let statements for a large
questionaire convinced me I had other things to do first!
So, how does one go about designing forms and reports for this type of
database?
Thanks
Tom
Keri Hardwick
assumes you are only doing ONE questionnaire (which I am going to call
surveys from now on because its easier to type!) More tables if you want to
do multiple styles. Your tables are:
tblQuestions
QID
QText
QOrder (sort order on the questionnaire)
tblAnswers
AID
AText
tblQuestionAnswers
*this table is used to create the survey. This would be used if you do a
printed survey, or a web survey. If you're going to hard code a form, you
don't need this table. Also note if it is a printed survey and the data
collection will be manual, consider printing the AID on the paper, this way
your can have data entry operators doing strictly numeric entry rather than
working with things like combo boxes, etc.
QID
AID
AOrder (sort order of answers after questions)
tblRespondents
*this table is used if the survey is not anonymous
RespondentId
(other info you want)
tblSurveys
SurveyId
DateReceived
RespondentId
(other things you want to know about the overall survey)
tblSurveyResponses
SurveyId
QID
AID
Reporting is done using queries based primarily on tblSurveyResponses,
joining to tblQuestions and tblAnswers to get the actual text.
Give me more specifics about where you are having trouble making forms and
reports. I have to say I don't see the need for unbound with classes. But
even if you did it, the data structure I have proposed would pretty much
eliminate the need for all those Lets and Gets because there are only 3
fields in the tables rather than the number of fields = number of questions.
Perhaps you thought I was advocating *for* SurveyId, Q1, Q2, Q3...
structure? NOOOOOOOOOOO.
Let me know what you're having trouble with, and I'll show you how I did it.
Keri
"Tom Mitchell" <rtm...@swbell.net> wrote in message
news:70dece58.01100...@posting.google.com...
Bob Barrows
>Keri:
>
>As someone who has fooled around with questionaires, but never done
>anything serious with them, I understand the advantages of your
>recommended table design. What I have never been able to figure out
>is how to deal with the forms and reports that go with it. I have
>thought about an unbound form/report with a class module, but the mere
>thought of writing hundreds of get/let statements for a large
>questionaire convinced me I had other things to do first!
>
>So, how does one go about designing forms and reports for this type of
>database?
Duane Hookom has posted a completely functional survey app called "At
your Survey" at
Tom Mitchell
To start, I understand you are NOT advocating for a SurveyID, Q1,
Q2… format. At its most fundamental we are discussing a table
design that has Question and AnswertoQuestion as its two
“productive” fields. Other fields are of course needed to
make the whole thing work as you have laid out, but I view those two
as the fundamental basis of the design.
So OK, here it goes. The current problem I am thinking about is a
~200 question survey (although survey/questionnaire may be misnomers).
Information is collected on paper forms by field personnel with no
access to computers or handhelds. Answers are T/F, multiple choice,
multiple multiple choice (i.e., select one or more answers form a
list) and/or text (numbers or strings). Data is transcribed from the
paper to DB by a research fellow. All questions and answers for an
individual “responder” need to displayed on the screen
simultaneously (or as much as the screen size permits with easy
navigation between succeeding screens for a given responder).
Two types or reports need to be generated. One is a printout of a
complete survey form for a responder. Another is statistical results
for all responders.
An additional design requirement is that data are likely to be
acquired from existing sources in typical setup of Q1, Q2… for
fields. Finally data will need to be exported to a high-end
statistical package like SAS.
So given these requirements, what I had been thinking of doing was an
unbound form with a class module as a recordsource. The class module
would encapsulate all the data for a given responder (which
essentially turns it back into the Q1, Q2… format).
Where the table format we are discussing trips me up is:
. how do I deal with the different answer formats when storing to the
table?
. how do I get the data to display in a well designed (read visually
appealing) form not just as a dataset of Q & A?
Also, the other issue that has me tied up is how to automate form
maintenance. For example, if I add a question to the survey, table
maintenance would be easy (there is none beyond adding a new record).
But how do I get the new question on the form without resorting to
opening it design mode an manually adding? Can I get the form to self
populate with both the questions and the answers on the fly?
Thanks
Tom
"Keri Hardwick" <ke...@removethis.sprintmail.com> wrote in message news:<iCFv7.26764$T24.10...@typhoon.san.rr.com>...
Keri Hardwick
fields, I'd put those in a separate table. You'll probably have to add 2
fields to the QuestionAnswers table, 1 to tell datatype of the answer, 1 to
tell form field type* for self-maintaining form, see comments below.
2 & 3. Nice form and self-maintaining form kind of go together. It would
be fairly easy to just bang out a form that looked good, offed things with
the right kind of input devices (i.e., text box or combo or option group or
checkbox) if you just wanted to do it once.
Ever consider doing this via web-based interface? The kind of form you are
talking about is so easy on a web-based form and so hard in Access! I'm
going to assume the only "maintenance" would be adding questions. I don't
know the whole of your situation, but it would take a stunning amount of
additional questions before the time expended to just open the form, change
it and close it would exceed the amount of thime it would take to write the
code for a self-modiying form. Think seriously about how much you are
trying to do the cool thing against the goals of expedience and
cost-benefit. I'd think maybe you would use a tab control for this form -
maybe the last tab would be "addl Questions" and you would just manipulate
that form. Could have a flag on your questionanswer table to indicate it's
a new Q that's not in the "base" form and just worry about those.
Finally, who the hell is going to answer 200 questions all at once?
Just some thoughts that I hope will stir some thoughts for you! Good luck.
Keri
"Tom Mitchell" <rtm...@swbell.net> wrote in message
news:70dece58.01100...@posting.google.com...
Tom Mitchell
Thanks for the response. The issue we have been discussing is an
actual project of mine. Basically, it is something I am helping my
wife with "on the side". Up to now its all been in the "traditional"
format, just because I haven't had the time to work it out properly in
the better format we have been discussing.
Regarding your question about answering 200 questions - the answer, in
two words, is a "research fellow". Its amazing what they will do and
the time they will invest in reviewing records to further their
research. As to why it takes 200 questions to get the data they need
is both beyond me and not really all that interesting to me. I was
intrigued by the DB challenges (not to mention the obvious enticements
of the research "fellow" in question) ;-)
Regarding the "gee whiz" vs the just "do it" approach, this is
something that I would like to do once then give it to my wife (who is
not Access proficient) and have minimum reinvolvement with it. Thus,
the more I can automate, the less I have to stay involved in the
future.
Regarding web-interface, I have a simple and somewhat embarrassing
reason for not going that direction - I have never bothered to learn
web design. Its all I can do to stay on the learning curve of Access
and VB. Oh well, here is wishing the day were 6 hours longer!
Oh, and regarding a tabbed form, I tried to set that up the first go
around. It took about 5 tabs to show all the fields with options
buttons, etc. The DB basically crashed when we got to the 4th tab and
would not let me add any more controls (was also quite sluggish). I
ended up doing 5 separate forms and coordinating the movement between
them. While the computer we were using was not state of the art, it
is by no means an antique.
Again, thanks for the help, I will continue to fool around with this
and hopefully produce something useful out of it. One last question
though, can you recommend any good design books on this topic
specifically?
Tom
"Keri Hardwick" <ke...@removethis.sprintmail.com> wrote in message news:<wg%v7.27067$T24.11...@typhoon.san.rr.com>...
Keri Hardwick
find books regarding making good surveys, but not on db for surveys.
Good luck again!
Keri
"Tom Mitchell" <rtm...@swbell.net> wrote in message
news:70dece58.01100...@posting.google.com...