Guidelines for Informing Policy via Data

CHAPTER 5 - COLLECTING DATA: GETTING STARTED (page 4)

5.3.3 E-mail Interviews

Interviews via e-mail are similar to mail-out/mail-back interviews, except that the questionnaire is in electronic format. An e-mail questionnaire is sent to potential respondents and that questionnaire is e-mailed back to the researcher.

Although a very low-cost option, e-mail interviews are not viable in most countries, since the majority of the population does not have an electronic mail account, and there is no registry or list of those that do have an electronic mail account. This option is included here for purposes of completeness.

Web-based interviews are growing in popularity and share some of the characteristics of CATI and e-mail interviewing. Like the survey forms for CATI, web-based survey forms can be programmed to automatically skip unnecessary questions, making completion of the survey easier for respondents than is the case for mail-out/mail-back forms. Like e-mail interviewing, web-based interviewing is low-cost. Again, like e-mail interviewing, this mode is not an option in most countries. In order for web-based interviews to work, the vast majority of the population of interest to the researcher must be literate and must have reasonably easy access to the Internet. However, one advantage of web-based interviews over e-mail-based interviews is that an e-mail address is not required for web-based interviews; potential respondents can be sent conventional mail or called to be informed about the survey.

The standard mode for interviews in most countries is the face-to-face interview, where the interviewer goes to the house of the potential respondent. This mode has been shown to yield the highest response rates, but it is also the most costly. Several variations of the face-to-face interview exist, including the focus group discussion, where multiple respondents come to a joint location and answer the questions of the interviewer as a group. Some additional variations are discussed below.

In this case, instead of the interviewer carrying traditional pencil-and-paper questionnaire forms, he/she carries a laptop computer to the home of a potential respondent. Using the computer, the interviewer asks the survey questions, much like the interviewer in CATI. This technique has many of the same advantages and disadvantages of CATI: data entry is significantly reduced or eliminated, and skip patterns are significantly easier to negotiate for the interviewer. One disadvantage of CAPI that does not exist for CATI is that interviewers carrying expensive computer equipment might be a target for theft and/or harassment in impoverished areas.

In some surveys, while an interviewer goes to the home of the potential respondent, the respondent enters their answers directly into the computer provided by the interviewer. This mode might be useful for sensitive questions, where respondents might be reluctant to give their answers directly to the interviewer due to embarrassment, but are willing to enter those answers into the computer if given the privacy to do so.

5.3.5.3 Audio Computer Assisted Self Interviewing (ACASI)

The difference between ACASI and CASI is that in the former the interviewer does not hear the questions or see the responses to the questions. In ACASI, the respondent listens to questions via headphones and enters answers into a laptop computer out of sight of the interviewer. ACASI provides even more privacy to the respondent than CASI, and there is, therefore, a greater likelihood that sensitive questions will be answered truthfully.

5.4 A FINAL NOTE

There is one option for the collection of data that has not yet been discussed in this chapter. If the researcher has a good relationship with an organisation that is already planning or conducting a survey, the researcher could add his/her survey questions to the existing instrument in use by that organisation. For example, the Metagora pilot project in the geographic area of the Andean Community involved adding a module on governance, democracy, and subjective poverty to existing household surveys.

The distinct advantage of "piggy-backing" onto an existing survey is the reduction in cost and labour. The disadvantages are that the survey mode and basic survey format are predetermined, so the researcher has little control over those aspects, and the addition of questions to an existing survey increases the response burden of the survey overall, which may decrease the response rate in comparison to a stand-alone survey. Even so, if the decision to add a module to a pre-existing survey is made carefully and intelligently, a high-quality data product can be produced at a fraction of the stand-alone cost.

5.5 RECOMMENDED READING

Dillman, D.A., Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method 2007 Update with New Internet, Visual, and Mixed-Mode Guide, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2006.

Ellsberg, M.C., and Heise, L., Researching Violence against Women: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists, World Health Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2005.

Hewett, P.C., Erulkar, A.S., and Mensch, B.S., "The Feasibility of Computer-Assisted Survey Interviewing in Africa: Experience from Two Rural Districts in Kenya," Social Science Computer Review, 22, 2004, p 319.

Human Sciences Research Council, Consent Form for Land Reform Survey, Human Sciences Research Council, Joahannesburg, South Africa, 2005.

Lavrakas, P.J., Telephone Survey Methods: Sampling, Selection, and Supervision, Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 1993.

Metagora, Case Study, 2007.