During November 27 – December 8, 2018, the Training of CAPI Use for Survey/Census Household Listing was conducted in Weno, Chuuk, Weno. The workshop was organized by the FSM National Statistics Office(NSO) and the Pacific Community (SPC).

The objective of the workshop is to train key FSM Statistics staff on Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) based interviewing, as well as the necessary training for Survey Solutions – a CAPI technology developed by World Bank for use in data collection such as censuses and surveys.

During the 2-week exercise the participants were provided tablet devices and learned how to capture information onto the tablet and synchronize their tablets to an online server to upload the information; then Statistics staff were able to “remotely” review the information and return the questionnaire as quick as possible to field interviewers for correction while in the field, if necessary. The technology uses FSM Telecom’s 3G wireless mobile band for tablet synchronization.

This is a crucial exercise for FSM NSOas it has committed to using CAPI in its upcoming two major data collection activities – 2019 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) and the 2020 Population and Housing Census (PHC).

There are numerous advantages of the CAPI methodology. The main one of notable mention is it enables much more efficient supervision of the fieldwork and review of interviewers’ questionnaire, hence, translating to quicker turn-around time for results