Before fieldwork - preparation
Arab House Research Co's team prepares the questionnaire script in English, translated it in Arabic, then back translating it to make sure that there won't be any meaning discrepancies. This is an important method of checking the preparation / translation – language understandability before starting the fieldwork.
A Selected team of interviewers is fully briefed on the questionnaire and survey procedures.
As a standard procedure, the questionnaire is piloted before fieldwork to ensure that the questions are relevant, unambiguous, smooth and efficient. The pilot involves 2-1 interviews conducted by each interviewer before actual fieldwork.
All training of interviewers is conducted by supervisors who must be previously trained on project management team standards.
The sample will be designed to represent the target group of the study taking into consideration the results of the latest official census conducted in the country, and the distributions by basic indicators.
During fieldwork – field observation
The interviewers are organized in small teams of (5-4) members headed by a supervisor.
Supervisors should accompany at least %20 of the fieldwork done by each interviewer on different days.
Supervisors should screen %100 of respondent profiles.
Standard procedures of re-interviewing are followed through the fieldwork by phone for (%20) and face-to-face for (%10) of the respondents distributed equally from all interviewers and for all the days of the fieldwork.
In the case of CAPI interviews, the GPS is used to determine the date of the interview, start and end time and the exact place of the interview.
In the case of CATI, the possibility of monitoring the full real interview through a screen monitor is available.
The quality audit should be done throughout the fieldwork activities on an ongoing basis.
Actions taken by the quality assurance manager on all reported quality issues are documented.
The purpose of these control procedures is to ensure that:
1. The interview took place.
2. Respondent is correctly selected.
3. The interview is fully completed.
4. Respondent answered clearly and in relevance to questions.
Post fieldwork – validation analysis plan
Validation of a completed questionnaire must be performed before sending it to data processing.
Discrepancies are referred to the project manager and checked back with the interviewer and/or the respondent.
A comprehensive template for the questions logic, filters, routing and permitted answer codes is integrated in the data entry program to enable an error-free entry and high-quality data.
Data entry verification step for %2 of entered questionnaires is done to ensure the high accuracy of the final data.
As a standard procedure, the data is analyzed by each interviewer to ensure consistency across all interviewers participated in the study.
All procedures and steps throughout different research phases are open to client monitoring and auditing.