Training/ Briefing Of Interviewers and Supervisors

An induction to Market Research is given to all new interviewers based on our field manual. Aspects covered during this induction include:

The role of market research
Importance of Market Research
Personal responsibilities as Interviewer
Use of scales
Introduction and overview of ESOMAR code of ethics

Following this induction, briefing is given on each new specific job, regardless of how much experience an interviewer or supervisor has (briefing attendance is required to participate in any given project), items covered for each project include:

Sampling
Methodology
Questions and answers
Skip patterns, scales
Specifics on job at hand (qualification criteria, probing, etc.).
Mock interviews in the office (between interviewers and between interviewers and supervisors)

Interviewers conduct interviews under close supervision until self-confidence is developed and minimum standards are achieved, this is before each project is released into field.

Supervision of Fieldwork – Intercept or At-Home F2F

For all face-to-face interviews Latin Field’s interviewers go in the field in teams of 3-4.

Each field team is supervised by one experienced field supervisor, responsible to audit 30-50% of interviewers´ work on the spot. The supervisor’s only job is to supervise, that is they do not conduct interviews. This means the supervisor will rotate between all 3-4 interviewers at all times so that at the end of the day a total of 30-50% of all interviews were supervised on the spot. Correct use of scales, probing and interviewing manners are monitored and corrected at this stage.

If any interviewer should have any questions or issues come up during field, they would go to the supervisor. If the supervisor sees any possible conflict they will immediately alert the Field Manager and the Project Manager. In addition to direct supervision, 15-30% are conducted through call-backs either via phone or in person. This type of supervision is aimed at verifying accuracy of contact data, product codes in case of placements as well as key data.

In-office supervision: 10% of the interviews are supervised at the office to spot problems with skip patterns and interviews’ completeness.

Validation and Quality Check

In addition to direct “on the spot” supervision, 15-30% of all interviews are validated through telephone call backs or in person:

Validation is done by a separate team, that means, a supervisor will not be validating the work that his/her field team completed ever. This validation is aimed at verifying accuracy of contact data, product codes in case of placements as well as key data.

In-office supervision: 10% of the interviews are supervised at the office to spot problems with skip patterns and interviews’ completeness. The aim for this is to ensure that there are no red flags prior to data entry.

Sampling & Fieldwork Methodology

The sampling of a F2F project varies from project to project. Some projects that are in-home require a random sampling methodology where we divide a city into zones and blocks and through random sampling certain blocks are selected and furthermore specific skip patterns are set. This methodology in Latin America is only used on projects that need to be extremely representative and that don’t include higher SEC levels. The reason for this is because in Latin America most high SEC level respondents live in gated neighborhoods, communities or buildings, therefore this type of sampling would be virtually impossible for them.

Street intercept sampling is done by selecting different areas of the city in order to have a good geographic and representative spread. Interviewers rotate between different areas and often even during different days of the week to aid in having a good representation. When we have SEC level quotas different areas can be accessed in order to meet these quotas better by going to higher income shopping areas vs. lower or medium income shopping areas.

In Latin America, since security is a concern, we try to go to areas where we know the respondents will feel comfortable talking to the interviewers. In studies where we do a recruit to central location, we have to recruit as we would for a qualitative study from all over a city and then send the respondents to a central location to be interviewed, this is often done for studies where we need to have surveys done on a computer or where we have taste tests involved. Sometimes we may even do tests at Internet cafes when we have an online methodology.

Coding

Pending on sample size, a code book is developed with a minimum of 100 interviews or 30% of the sample. New codes are opened at an incidence of 1-3%. Coding of open-ended questions is audited at random for 20% of interviews.

Data Entry

Prior to data entry 100% of all completed questionnaires are manually checked and edited. A data map is created or we ask our clients for a data map. Usually we do data entry for the first 10% – 20% of all completes in order to check for any initial red flags and to ensure that once we have all fieldwork completed any data/column/code errors are corrected ahead of time. Data entry screens are developed to validate data entry. After completion, field reports are compared to cross tabs to verify total interviews and split by key criteria. In addition to these checks, up to 30% of data entry is audited at random through either double keypunch or manually. In case of errors, data from individual keypunchers is further supervised.

All completed paper questionnaires are kept for 12 months and then destroyed. If we ship any completed questionnaires to our clients we make backup copies and we keep the copies for 12 months.

« Back to Quantitative