[DDI-users] Questions related to QuestionGrid

[Wackerow, Joachim]

I looked at a use case of the ESS (European Social Survey) round 6 questionnaire. Now I have some questions and comments related to QuestionGrid.
With some of them I'm pushing probably the limits of the current approach in 3.2.
Any thoughts on the questions and comments would be appreciated.

1. Resulting variables
One use case is that each question (i.e. row) in a grid results in a variable. The variable can only reference the whole QuestionGrid, but not the individual question. This is not really satisfying.
Are there any other possibilities?

2. Reuse of single questions in a grid
A single question in a grid (or a subset of a grid) could be reused in another grid or as single question (this happens sometimes in new waves of the same survey). But questions in a grid are realized as CodeScheme/CategoryScheme.
A single code could be referenced to reuse the Code/Category as question in another context, but this seems to be awkward. Did I miss something?

3. Reuse of QuestionGrid
How can QuestionGrids be reused and a question number be assigned to each individual question (in a row)?

4. Alternative to QuestionGrid
In the use case (mentioned below), a QuestionGroup could be another option. Then the issues 1-3 from above can be solved. The semantics are a little different.
A workaround could be to use a QuestionGrid which refers by BasedOnObject to the QuestionGroup.

5. Dimensions in a grid
I looked at the example (slide 14, 15) in the EDDI13 presentation "To 3.2 or Not to 3.2? That is the Question" at http://www.eddi-conferences.eu/ocs/index.php/eddi/EDDI13/paper/view/117.
The slide can show only a XML fragment. Now I'm wondering how "Older than Patient" and "Younger than patient" are realized, when "Number still alive" would be rank 1 (is rank 2 not the appropriate solution?).

Related question: How can it be described when one dimension has a different type of response domain than the grid? A GridDimension can have only a CodeDomain.
5. Misleading semantics regarding questions in a grid?
The individual questions in a grid are not realized as QuestionItem but as Code/Category. The semantics seem to be wrong. Why was the use of QuestionItem not possible? This would have solved the issues 1 and 2 from above.

6. Mix of representational and structural information?
I'm not really clear about this. But my impression is that there is not a clear distinction between structural and representational information.
There seem to be multiple levels (in the use case below):

-        The atomic level of an item (in the grid), like a question or an answer category.

-        The compound object of question and answer categories.

-        The question sequence (in a grid) with the same answer categories.

-        Some representational/rendering information (for example the answer categories are not repeated but only mentioned at the top). This could be differently arranged in different modes.
This is probably more an issue for DDI 4 and will need some further analysis.

Reference:
ESS round 6 questionnaire
Page 5, starting with "CARD 5 Using this card, please tell me on a score of 0-10 how much you" in the document at:
http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/round6/fieldwork/source/ESS6_source_main_questionnaire.pdf.

Achim

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