searchMECFS: An online, interactive platform to facilitate secondary use of biospecimens and associated research data from myalgic encephalomyelitis studies
September 2026
Using ACASI to measure gender-based violence in Ugandan primary schools
Key Points
- Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) provides respondents with privacy and confidentiality. It has been used by researchers administering surveys of a sensitive nature and is widely regarded as a useful tool in reducing social desirability bias in responses to sensitive surveys. However, ACASI has never been used to measure school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), a survey normally administered face to face (FTF), among primary school–aged children.
- A large-scale study was conducted in Uganda in 2019, where surveys on school climate, gender attitudes, social-emotional learning (SEL), and experiences of violence were administered to Primary Grade 3 pupils. These four different surveys of varying sensitivity were used to observe differences in responses across the ACASI and FTF administration types, with experiences of violence being the most sensitive.
- Comparing responses between the ACASI and FTF groups, reported school climate did not show a difference, indicating that there may be low levels of social desirability bias around this topic. However, there was a difference in reporting by gender for the gender attitudes and SEL surveys, indicating the potential for social desirability bias present in the data collected via FTF.
- Comparing responses from the SRGBV survey, reports of experiencing at least one act of sexual violence nearly doubled under ACASI compared with FTF, indicating extremely high levels of social desirability bias when talking about sexual violence in schools.
Abstract
School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) remains difficult to measure because of high sensitivity and response bias. However, most SRGBV measurement relies on face-to-face (FTF) survey administration, which is susceptible to increased social desirability bias. Widely used in research on sensitive topics, Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) allows subjects to respond to pre-recorded questions on a computerized device, providing respondents with privacy and confidentiality. This brief contains the findings from a large-scale study conducted in Uganda in 2019 where primary grade 3 students were randomly selected to complete surveys using either ACASI or FTF administration. The surveys covered school climate, gender attitudes, social-emotional learning, and experiences of SRGBV. Through this study, we find that although most survey responses were comparable between ACASI and FTF groups, the reporting of experiences of sexual violence differed drastically: 43% of students in the FTF group versus 77% of students in the ACASI group reported experiencing sexual violence in the past school term. We also find that factor structures are similar for data collected with ACASI compared with data collected FTF, though there is weaker evidence for construct validity for both administration modes. We conclude that ACASI is a valuable tool in measuring sensitive sub-topics of SRGBV and should be utilized over FTF administration, although further psychometric testing of these surveys is recommended.
© 2026 RTI International. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
