The Use of Mobile Devices for Real-Time Data Collection: Challenges, Prospects and Opportunities

This study was carried out to review the use of mobile devices for data collection in Nigeria and to suggest ways to optimize this technology for real-time data collection. The study also looked at the challenges, prospects and opportunities for the evaluation of projects. A cross sectional study was conducted using Survey Monkey software to administer questionnaires to a cross section of stakeholders within 14 days. Out of 1,000 persons who were approached for the survey, a total of 102 persons responded and provided feedback, but 100 responses were accessed and analyzed given a response rate of 10.2% in the survey. The results obtain from the findings indicated that 99.0% of respondents had experience or participated in data collection. While, 53.0% had used both the smartphones/tablets and paper forms for data collection, 33.0% of the respondents had used only smartphones for data collection and 14.0% had used only paper forms for data collection. Data analysis indicated that 24.0% of all respondents who had used smartphones/tablets encountered some forms of problems, while 76.0% did not encounter any issue. 34.0% of respondents indicated that they had problem using the paper form while 60% indicated that they were comfortable with the paper form. Further analysis suggested that 93.0% of respondents preferred the use of smart phone/tablet method for data collection compared to 7.0% who preferred the use of paper-based data collection method. Results further revealed that 95.0% of respondents had skills or training on the use of smartphones for data collection as against 5.0% who had no training nor skills. However, access to internet connectivity is quiet poor in rural areas where most of the data collection activities take place. Overall, the use of smartphones for data collection in Nigeria is on the increase.nbsp It is recommended that the use of real-time data collection with smartphones should be embraced as their challenges are minimal compared to other forms of data collection.