Paper-and-Pencil Interviewing (PAPI)

Prior to the 1980s, essentially all survey data collection that was done by an interviewer was done via paper-and-pencil interviewing, which came to be known as PAPI. Following the microcomputer revolution of the early 1980s, computer-assisted interviewing (CAI)— for example, computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), computer-assisted self-interviewing (CASI), and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI)— had become commonplace by the 1990s, essentially eliminating most uses of PAPI, with some exceptions. PAPI still is used in instances where data are being gathered from a relatively small sample, with a noncom-plex questionnaire, on an accelerated start-up time basis, and/or the time and effort it would take to program (and test) the instrument into a computer-assisted version simply is not justified. PAPI also serves as a backup for those times when ...