Table 4 Focus group themes - exploring text messaging as a survey tool in a low income community
From: Text messaging as a community-based survey tool: a pilot study
Category | Theme | Representative quote |
|---|---|---|
General experience with text survey | Positive | “I would read a text [survey] faster than if somebody sent me a survey through the mail”. |
“That”s all people do is text anyway!” | ||
“It is plain and simple. It isn’t like you are sending off paragraphs at a time.” | ||
Negative | “But I would forget. You know, once you get to your destination you forget [to answer the text]”. | |
Technical issues | Phone service provider issues | “Like sometimes in my house, in our neighborhood the reception is bad so if a text comes through and I go outside I will respond to the text and like the next day I go and see that it was saved in ‘address’ like, you didn’t send”. |
Timing and frequency | Number of texts | “Two [a day] is enough for me”. |
“Send some more! Send five a day!” | ||
Timing | “I didn’t like the ones that came after ten because I turn in like at eight. So the ones I got at ten o’clock you might have got a weird answer”. | |
“Sundays are not good because of church”. | ||
Texts compared to other modes | Preferred over paper, phone, face-to-face, internet surveys | “I want to do more text surveys”. |
“I like text surveys better than those other kinds [of surveys]”. | ||
“It takes a shorter time if I text than just writing it on a sheet of paper”. | ||
“It’s a lot quicker than taking a survey on the internet. I will tell you that!” | ||
Implementation for text surveys | Types of survey questions | “Text would not be good for sensitive stuff”. |
“If I thought it was going to be that personal I would say one on one [interviewing] is better”. | ||
Incentives | “I think you would have to put it out there in the beginning that it is a quarter, but I would do it [answer the text survey]”. | |
“I would do it for nothing if it’s going to help people in the long run with their insurance because I don’t have none [insurance]”. |