Newbie needs help and advice!!

[jetblack]

Hi all,
I'm new to the forum and relatively new to MS Access too so am really seeking some advice.

I'm studying for a PhD and as part of that I am wanting to do some research using a questionnaire and instead of doing it the traditional pen and paper way, I was hoping to do it on computer and present it to participants on a laptop, hand it to them and get them to complete it as appropriate. That way, it saves on printing costs and data input effort if the answers are stored as they answer the questions.

Is this something that is possible within Access? It would be a case of presenting 2 scenarios on a 'page' and asking them to select which they prefer, then moving on to the next page to answer the next questions (similar format), ending with some general questions about age, gender etc.

Does anyone have any advice about how to go about getting this started?

If anyone can help I'd be really grateful!

Thank you

 

[asanjose]

Good morning Jetblack,

You have a good idea there.

Here are some things to get you started:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3

There are templates already designed for questionnaires and such.

Good luck!
asj

 

[Access_guy49]

Re: Newbie seeking help and advice!

How Many questions/Scenarios are we talking about here?

 

[jetblack]

Re: Newbie seeking help and advice!

Well there will be about 16 questions posing 2 scenarios where the participant will have to select their preference, then probably about 10/12 demographic type questions.
Does this help? I need to be able to display the scenarios side by side so the participant can compare before making a choice - a 3x4 table would be fine for this and then a check box system for which option they prefer at the end of the question?

 

[DCrake]

You could actually do this in Word and have each question on a seperate page depending on the senerio. Then at the end of the questionnaire have a submit button that exports the data to Access or Excel.
If the questionnaire is sent to the user electronically to complete it could be coded not to export but simply save the details in the word doc and when you open it it can them be exported to your Access database or Excel workbook.

 

[jetblack]

Thank you for your reply - this sounds great! Doing it Word would mean I can have the layout exactly as I want it (I've already designed it in Word for the paper version) - is this 'submit' button and exporting to access/excel quite straightforward?

 

[DCrake]

This all depends on how you are versed with VBA.

In theory this is how it would work

You have two tick boxes on a page named Chk1 and Chk2 alongside the senerios.

At the end of the questionnaire you will have a submit button which will use DAO.Recordsets to connect to and add new records to a nominated table.

This button should only be visible if the target access database is accessable.

Like

If Dir(Path And Name of Database) <> "" Then
   Button is visible
Else
   Button is Invisible
End If

As long as the user saves the doc and returns it their answers should be stored in the saved document.

 

[jetblack]

Hmm in theory it sounded like it would be a winner, but I'm not sure I have the skills to do it - I don't understand VBA or dao.recordsets!! :-S

 

[DCrake]

Then you either need to do some reading or searching for suggestions on this topic.

 

[Access_guy49]

To be honnest, I would just make a form with tabs. (the wizard allows for this relativly easily) And then on each tab i would place a question. You could then have a yes or no response for each question that populates the table. It might be a little convoluted as far as fields in a table are concerned but it's probably the most straight forward approach for a newbie