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Staff Training and Quality Assurance

• Staff training that is RELEVANT, and given at the appropriate TIMING for the activity that is being planned will help maintain quality in any process

• Training equips staff with information, and helps ensure that staff complete their work objectives correctly

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Staff Training and Quality Assurance

The most accurate data

is obtained directlyfrom the source.

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Types of Enumerator Errors

Coverage Error• Locating the Unit• Contacting the Respondent• Obtaining Participation

Content Error• Deliberately Giving Incorrect

Information• Misunderstanding on Part of

Respondent

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Start with Good Enumerators• Know the characteristics you need in your

enumerators:• Language• Basic skills

• Have complete and honest job descriptions when recruiting:• Work involved• Hours and availability

• Ensure your enumerators meet the basic skill level required during selection process and training.

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Develop Good Training Materials

• Train the instructors:• Provide good materials for their use.• Develop tools to evaluate enumerators without

relying on the personal opinion of the instructors.

• Develop procedural and training guides:• Should provide information that is needed in

simple terminology• Include a system for updating procedures

• Evaluate the overall training program:• Effectiveness of training materials, instructors,

setting, and timing.• Trainee feedback on the training program.

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Continuous Improvement Based on

Experience• Training regimes for interviews should attempt to

provide some of the tailoring lessons that experienced enumerators learn through trial and error over time

• Provide new enumerators with a large range of contact problems and householder concerns and group the concerns into themes

• Each theme could them be addressed with a different line of solutions/ arguments for presentation by enumerators

• To be effective, enumerators need to provide these solutions/ arguments quickly in their own words, customized to the terms used by the householder

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Training of Field PersonnelVerbatim Training Guides

• Provides review of training topics• training consistency• training quality independent of trainer

Field Supervisors to Train Enumerators• establishes lines of authority• reduces class size• identify future training needs• promotes job comprehension

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Use of Job Aids• Job aids are any device that helps a person perform a job

better. The presentation of step-by-step procedural information can be done using different formats.

• Checklists, flowcharts, and decision tables are some formats that are used in the US

• Job aids present the minimum amount of information necessary to complete a task successfully

• Studies indicate that use of job aids enabled inexperienced personnel to outperform experienced workers

• During training emphasis should be placed on use of the job aid. Trainer should introduce the job aid early on in the training so that trainee becomes familiar with the tool

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Performance Based Training

• Performance based training requires that the enumerator demonstrate performance of a set of priority skills

• Trainer’s role changes from one of mainly presenting information to roles of demonstrating skills, organizing practice exercises, and providing feedback to the trainees about their performance

• Frequent use of job aids, and evaluation exercises THROUGHOUT training and end-of-course proficiency reviews

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Despite attempting to administer the same

questionnaire, with the same procedures, given the same training, interviewers vary in

what types of people they succeed in attracting to

participate.

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Contacting the Respondent

1.Visit units with access impediments (barriers) first as it may take longer to reach the unit.

2.Single person households tend to be at home less frequently.

3.Know the area - in U.S., Sunday through Thursday evenings have higher at-

home rates.

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Respondent Selection

• Person• Householder• Any Adult Household Member• Proxy Respondent

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Obtaining Participation

• Refusals

• Inability to respond (language, health, access)

• Typically respondents are different than non-respondents.

• Urban areas participate less than rural.

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Interviewing Techniques

1. Know the Survey2. Have a Good Introduction3. Ask Questions Exactly as

Worded4. Protect Confidentiality

5. Enter Responses Correctly

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Have a Good Introduction

Introductory Basics• Name• Organization• Survey and Purpose• Legal Authorization• Confidentiality

Give Interviewers Flexibility

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Know the Survey• Interviewer must be able to provide accurate

information about the survey to the respondent.

• Training provides interviewers with adequate background information and a good understanding of survey terms and definitions.

• All information given to a respondent must be accurate to ensure that the reported data is accurate.

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Ask Questions Exactlyas Worded

• Interviewers are trained to ask questions exactly as they are written to ensure the survey data is valid and unbiased.

• Quality question delivery guarantees consistency in the interpretation of the questions by the respondents. Every respondent receives the same question.

• AVOID BIASING A RESPONDENT’S ANSWER

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How Do We Train Enumerators to Ask Questions Exactly as Worded?

• Practice interviews during classroom

training.

• Observation / monitoring

• Provide specific feedback.

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Reasons for Entering the Wrong Responses

1. Conducting the interview too fast2. Inexperience3. Nervousness4. Not realizing when an inaccurate response has been given

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Probe to Obtain More Complete and Accurate DataProbing is used to:

• Encourage a respondent to give more complete answers to the survey questions.

• Refresh a respondent’s recollection of specific events, times, or dates.

• Clarify a question that the respondent does not understand.

Probing can also be done erroneously

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Training Enumerators to Probe Correctly

• If the enumerator probes incorrectly might introduce bias into the survey statistics

• Incorporate proper probing techniques into your training regime, use of experienced enumerators could be helpful in development of probing guidelines

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Completing the Questionnaire•Make sure interviewers thoroughly

understand skip instructions to ensure responses are not put in the wrong space.

•Train on the standard method for recording responses and for correcting wrong entries.

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Communications Training

Training Must Prepare Interviewers To:

• Listen for concerns

• Identify a way to address them

• Deliver answer quickly, in native

language

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Communications TrainingActive Listening

• Active listening includes attending, interpreting, and responding

• Keys to Active Listening• Give full attention and suspend judgment• Focus on the speaker and resist distractions• Pay attention to all nonverbal

communication (tone of voice, facial expressions, overall behavior of the speaker)

• Listen to all of what is being said instead of tuning out or preparing a reply

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Evaluation of Performance

• Evaluation during training:• observed or monitored performance during practice interviewing and

performance on specially designed workbook exercises.• Evaluation measures used at the end of training.

• The trend in this type of training has been to develop measures of performance that indicate whether or not an interviewer is minimally capable to perform on the job. Assessment has generally focused on two areas: conceptual knowledge of question specifications and procedures and demonstrated skill as an interviewer. To asses these skills, an end of training conceptual test and a “test” interview conducted with trained professional staff.

• Evaluation measures used after training:• Criteria such as production rates, response rates, edit-error rates, and

cost per-interview are useful measures to evaluate success of training. Additionally, it is important to quantify the interactive process between interviewer and respondents. The general goals are to identify the critical dimensions of interviewer respondent interaction so that desired behaviors can be identified and stressed during training.

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Summary of Key Components to Training

• Continuous improvement of relevant training materials

• Use of job aids• Evaluation of performance during,

end, and after training • Update training based on

evaluation

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Training and experience directly affect the quality of data collected.

Quality of data collected depends on the quality of the field work.

A well-designed training program will result in quality

data.