Conferences

Using survey data takes a certain amount of faith; faith that the questions were adequately tested, faith that the sample was selected correctly, and faith that data were collected using the specified and reported protocols. If all goes as hoped, researchers will have found the Holy Grail of High Quality Data. But, although survey researchers expend considerable time and resources designing protocols, developing instruments, fielding surveys and convincing respondents to participate, much can go amiss. This introduction to the session on Fieldwork Monitoring summarizes key issues in the process of data collection, including fieldwork management structure, hiring and payment of interviewers, the design and use of contact forms and systems as well as the interpretation of the data they produce. Papers in this session share a common focus on monitoring how the interviewer approaches the sample unit. Presenters discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of various tools used to gather or analyse contact data. Depending on their ease of use for interviewers, contact forms can provide process data that reveal patterns of non-response, problematic interviewer behaviour, or uneven sample management. Effective and timely analysis of contact data may allow mitigation or reduction of non-response, improve data quality and lower costs. Data from both single-country and cross-national surveys are discussed in this session.