Testing the Feasibility of 

Collecting Expenditure Data via 

Individual Mobile and Desktop 

Diaries

Ian Elkin, Brandon Kopp, Brett McBride, and 

Lucilla Tan

Consumer Expenditure Survey Division

2015 FCSM Research Conference

December 3, 2015
Presentation Outline

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I. Individual Diaries Overview

II. Sample Performance & Characteristics

III. Feasibility

IV. Expenditure Reporting

V. Individual Web Mode Data Quality

VI. Conclusion
I. INDIVIDUAL DIARIES 

OVERVIEW

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Consumer Expenditure Diary 

(CED) Overview

 The CED currently uses 1 paper diary to collect 

household expenditures for a week (x2) 

 Interviewers “place” the diary in-person and 

conduct up to two more visits 

 The CED gathers more detailed expenditures 

than the Consumer Expenditure Interview Survey

 The Diary is divided into four sections: 

 Food Away From Home 

 Food for Home Consumption 

 Clothing, Shoes, Jewelry and Accessories 

 All Other Products, Services and Expenses 

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Individual Diaries Background

 The Individual Dairies Feasibility Test (IDFT) was 

designed to inform the operational and data 

quality aspects of collecting expenditures from 

household members using personal electronic 

diaries

 Since 2004, there have been various ongoing 

initiatives to test various forms of instruments 

to address the limitations of one paper diary for 

households with multiple members 

 Two modes of electronic diaries were tested:

 Mobile internet (via smartphone)

 Desktop internet

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Individual Diaries Logistics

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 Data Collection Period – Aug - Dec 2014

 Starting Sample Addresses – 1,200 (Philadelphia, Chicago, & Los Angeles Regional Offices)

 Targeted sampling on area mobile usage, internet 

penetration, multi-person households, and English speaking households

 Developed separate online mobile & desktop applications

 Diary placement occurs once across the 2-week recording period

 Interviewers provide username and password to Respondents

 No individual-level outcome codes for Ind. Diary (final disposition)

 New materials 

 Mobile User Guide

 Desktop User Guide

 YouTube Online Tutorials
Individual Diaries Eligible Cases 

& Assignment Protocol

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 Eligible Individual Diaries Cases

 English only

 No Multi-CU HHs or Replacement HHs

 Home internet access via PC, tablet, Smartphone

 Assignment Protocol

 If a household screens in as eligible, household 

members are offered modes sequentially

 Mobile mode first and, if they do not have a 

Smartphone, then

 Desktop mode, including tablet 
Individual Diaries Monitoring 

Protocol

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 Individual Diaries did not provide 

interviewers the opportunity to monitor if 

diary entry occurred during the recording 

period (due to technical/resource 

limitations)

 Interviewer Follow-up Calls

 Reminder Calls (or visits if necessary) on Day 3 

and Day 8 were encouraged for all participating 

households

 Tailored follow-up calls were made to households 

that Census flagged for going three consecutive 

days without logging into the instrument
Individual Diaries Training and 

Materials

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 Training conducted in-person for one day 

and was a departure from standard CE 

training protocols - focused more heavily on 

protocol changes

 Respondent Materials

 Mobile and Desktop User Guides – Focus on 

logging in and entering expenses

 Three YouTube Online Tutorials

 Getting Started

 What to Enter in the CE Diary

 Entering and Editing Expenses
II. SAMPLE PERFORMANCE & 

CHARACTERISTICS

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Characteristics of Sampled 

Households versus Restricted 

Production

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 Restricted Production (RP) – Production cases 

from the same time period and regions 

restricted to match IDFT test sample by only 

including English speaking HHs with internet 

access who had diaries double placed.

 IDFT vs. RP

More homeowners (70.7% vs. 63.2%)

Fewer single-person HHs (16.5% vs. 23.7%)

Lower prevalence of converted refusals (1.2% 

vs. 3.7%)
Characteristics of Individual 

Diarists by HH Assigned Diary Type

 Diary Types – Mobile, Desktop, Mix (Mobile & 

Desktop) & Paper

 Compared to desktop-only HH diarists, mobile 

diarists were more likely to be under the age of 

50, college graduates, white, of Hispanic origin, 

and live in larger HHs.

 Younger members were particularly receptive to 

the mobile diary, as 41% of mobile diarists were 

between the ages of 16 & 34 compared to 27% 

of paper diarists. 

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Sample Performance

 Difference in Rates – (IDFT – RP)

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ID RP Diff % Diff

Screen-out rate 25% 31% -6% -19.4%

Contact rate 96% 95% 1% 1%

Cooperation rate 23% 28% -5% -17.9%

Response rate 22% 27% -5% -18.5%

 The higher non-response & screen-out rates in 

the RP sample may be attributed to the IDFT 

sample design.

‘Non-response’ rate 

(or non-placement rate) 

59% 64% -6% -7.8%
III. FEASIBILITY

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Adherence to Protocol

 Multi-member HHs – Interviewer reports of ‘central 

person’ diary recording

 Interviewer monitoring of diary logins

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N % with follow-up attempt

PHI 88 5%

CHI 152 31%

LA 175 4%

Average: 14%

 HHs that were contacted were significantly more likely 

to complete their diaries than those that were not (70% 

vs. 49%)

 HHs that were successfully contacted had a 

significantly higher average number of entries (52 vs. 

25)
Obstacles to Accessing Web 

Dairies 

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 URL – https://respond.census.gov/ced

 Username & Password Requirements
IV. EXPENDITURE 

REPORTING

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Contemporaneous Reporting

 28% of mobile diary entries came between 6pm & 9pm 

versus just 19.7% for desktop diary entries. 

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0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

midnight-3am 3am-6am 6am-9am 9am-noon noon-3pm 3pm-6pm 6pm-9pm 9pm-midnight

Mobile (N=93) Desktop (N=149)
Expenditure Reporting: 

Individual vs. Household

 Mean and median number of HH entries by group –multiple 

diarists

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N Mean Median

ID 57 70.4 59.0

RP 139 89.4 85.0

Diff (ID-RP) - -19.0 -26.0

% Difference - -21.3% -30.6%

 Count of HH entries by size and group

2 diarists/age-eligible 

members

3+ diarists/age-eligible 

members

N Mean Median N Mean Median

ID 47 64.8 57 10 96.8 109

RP 98 82.1 76 41 107.0 114

Diff (ID-RP) - -17.3 -19.0 - -10.2 -5.0

% Difference - -21.1% -25.0% - -9.5% -4.4%
V. INDIVIDUAL WEB MODE 

DATA QUALITY

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Number of Entries at the HH 

Level

 Mean & median number of HH entries by group 

– all diarists

 Mean & median entries per single-member HHs 

by group – all diarists

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No. CUs Mean Median

ID 164 59.4 50.5

RP 190 79.5 72.0

Diff (ID-RP) - -20.1 -22.5

% Difference - -25.3% -31.3%

N Mean Median

ID 30 36.1 37.5

RP 51 52.3 47.0

Diff (ID-RP) - -16.2 -9.5

% Difference - -30.9% -20.2%
Number of Entries at the HH 

Level

 Count of average HH entries per section by 

group

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0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

FDB MLS CLO OTH

ID Sample RP Sample
Number of Entries by Diary 

Mode

 Descriptive statistics of entries by diary mode 

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No. diarists Mean Median Min Max

Mobile 87 33.5 21.0 1.0 133.0

Desktop 146 41.9 31.0 2.0 177.0

Recall 16 44.5 32.5 1.0 113.0
Prevalence of Entries by 

Recall/Receipts

 Percentage of HHs reporting expenses through 

recall/receipts by group.

 Few respondents who reported expenditures 

through recall reported technical difficulties, 

suggesting that busyness or burden played a 

part in how they reported.

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No. CUs

At least 1 entry by 

Recall/Receipts Total Recall

ID 210 29.5% 21.9%

RP 200 NA 5.0%

Diff (ID-RP) - - 16.9%

% Difference - - 338%
VI. CONCLUSION

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In Summary

 There were challenges implementing the test 

protocol as designed. 

 The data indicated a lower than expected prevalence of 

all eligible household members cooperating with the 

survey request in multi-member CUs. Other measures 

beyond offering individual diaries, such as the offering 

of incentives, may be needed to maximize within-CU 

participation.

 The need to enter a long web site address and the 

complexity of password requirements made logging in 

to the web diaries a difficulty for many respondents. 

 The CE Program needs improvements in the 

infrastructure supporting web diary monitoring to be 

able to take advantage of the full functionalities of web 

diaries. 26
In Summary

 There was no improvement in household 

cooperation rates for the ID sample compared to 

the RP sample.

 The examination of contemporaneous reporting 

of expenses for respondents with web diaries 

was hampered by data limitations. 

 Single proxy respondents using paper diaries 

reported more median entries than diarists 

assigned individual web diaries, among multimember CUs. 

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In Summary

 There were fewer entries and lower reported 

expenditure totals among the ID sample CUs 

compared to the RP sample CUs.

 We identified characteristics that were 

associated with a larger number of entries and 

higher expenditure amounts among CUs given 

web diaries. 

 Feedback from diarists in the ID sample who 

responded to debriefing questions was largely 

positive regarding the ease of recording 

expenses and the security of their data. 

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Contact Information

Ian J. Elkin

Senior Economist

Branch of Research and Development

Consumer Expenditure Survey

www.bls.gov/cex

202-691-6865

elkin.ian@bls.gov