Data Collection in the Palm of Your Hand: A Case Study

Mobile computing devices, which are commonly known as either personal digital assistants (PDA) or personal information managers (PIM), are an emerging technology that has the potential to be very useful in specific areas of computing. One area in which mobile computing devices are gaining favor is in data collection, especially in places where larger computers are impractical. While the use of these devices as a data collection tool is not a new idea (see Drury, 1987), it has been a bit slow to take off. However, recent advances in this area of technology have allowed the gap in functionality between mobile computing devices and personal computers to be closed to such an extent that these devices may be considered to be as functional in many ways as a laptop or palmtop computer for collecting data. In fact, the conversion of paper and pencil forms such as surveys, questionnaires, and assessments to these devices may be considered a next logical step in the use of mobile computing devices.