Case Studies / In Practice
University of Maryland Gets Straight Answers from Teenagers
"Using the Sensus technology is wonderful in helping us gather information from young mothers," reports Dr. Maureen Black of the University of Maryland department of Pediatrics. "We find that young women are certainly able to use Sensus Q&A, they like it, and the interviews can be conducted much faster than when we read the questionnaire to them."
Dr. Black has been using Sensus Q&A with Sensus Multimedia for over a year in the "Three Generations Study" project. This five-year study, funded by the Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, measures the success of home intervention for adolescent mothers.
The home intervention program was developed to promote the well-being of the mother by helping her stay in school, get along with her family, and avoid further pregnancy during adolescence.
Through home intervention, the Bureau also hopes to promote the mother's parenting role in the care and feeding of her child, in ensuring adequate health care, and in monitoring the child's growth. halfo of the young women in the study are receiving home intervention and half are not.
Dr. Black and her staff arrange interviews with the adolescent mother, her mother, and the child's father. Follow-up interviews are conducted after 6 months, 12 months, and 2 years. The interviews are self-administered by laptop.
Sensus Q&A and Sensus Multimedia take care of the extensive logic and complex branching required. The interviews take about one hour, an improvement over previous interviewer-administered questionnaires. In addition, the software's multimedia features, such as the ability to include pictures, help maintain respondent interest throughout the interview.
Dr. Black is pleased with the advantages of Sensus Q&A offers. She cited a recent article in the journal Science (see related article) that discusses adolescents' increased willingness to disclose sensitive information in computer interviews, something Dr. Black has also observed in her own study.
As the "Three Generation Study" continues over five years, Sensus Q&A and Sensus Multimedia will continue to contribute to this University of Maryland research by helping to combat respondent boredom, by reducing the time needed to complete surveys, and as a particularly good method for collecting sensitive information from adolescent respondents.
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