Diaries ask respondents to record certain events over a specific period of time - generally one or two weeks.

For example:
One main purpose of the Household expenditure survey is to obtain information in order to update the weighting pattern and the basket of goods and services for the Retail Price Index.

Fieldwork

Generally, it runs for a period of 12 months and households are divided into groups and each group will record expenditure over a period of one or two weeks.

What respondents record

Detailed expenditure for a period of one or two weeks.

For example:

• Daily shopping,
• travel,
• mortgage,
• bills,
• households appliances,
• cars,
• holidays,
• etc

Diaries may be designed as open format to allow respondents to record activities in their words, or they can be structured with all activities and events pre-categorised. This will depend much on the topic you are surveying.

Features of a diary

Set of online instructions on how to complete the diary.
An example of a correctly completed diary.
Each page denotes clearly whether it covers a week, a day, and so on with enough space to enter all the required information.
Online help and explanations throughout.
Checklists of the items.
Feedback.

Examples of online diaries include:

• Student income & expenditure survey
• Family expenditure survey
• Food expenditure survey
• Diet & nutrition survey
• Travel survey
• Tourism & recreation survey
• Etc