Market Survey Quality control

Quality assurance in MRP-EURASIA

MRP-EURASIA complies with ESOMARs (the world organization for enabling better research into markets, consumers and societies) guidelines in our data collection.

Approach to Quality

Recruitment and training

Interviewer recruitment and selection
We insist on all potential interviewers handing in written applications with CVs, and all are interviewed by our supervisors to be assessed with regard to suitability. In our recruitment we look for interviewers with a minimum of secondary school level education, who have previous work experience and who are highly motivated for the job. We also perform a reading fluency test to assure that we only hire those that are able to read aloud fluently. 
The average age of MRP-EURASIA interviewers for socio-polls is at present 27 years.

 

Trainings

All MRP-EURASIA interviewers go through a basic training course focusing on market research,
interview technique and communication. This training covers the basics of market research such as sampling and questionnaire wording, and goes into some detail on the subject of interview technique: how to correctly conduct an interview and how to deal with different issues and situations that may arise. 

As a supplement to the basic training all interviewers receive a interviewers’ manual upon starting at MRP-EURASIA. This covers the information on rules and techniques for interviewing in the basic training course as well as addressing and giving more in-depth information about market research and the different types of study we conduct.

We offer further training courses in the fields of recruitment and face to face interviewing to a chosen few of our interviewers who are especially experienced and/or shows special talent.

 

Interviewer Briefings

In addition to this, briefings are either held face to face or given in writing, or both, for each study. We also aim to give the interviewers some additional input by “theme of the week” presentations focusing on a different aspect of advanced interview technique every week.

 

Experienced interviewers

On average, MRP-EURASIA interviewers have more than 500 hours of interviewing behind them.  We view the experience of the interview staff as one of our most important assets, and reward interviewers who work frequently and those who stay with us over time through our salary systems. 
We are concerned with keeping employee turnover at a low level, and among the measures we take to this end are our annual employee survey to keep track of interviewer satisfaction and our quarterly web-based survey addressed to former employees tracking reasons for leaving the interviewer job. The 2007 work climate survey shows that 94% of our interviewers find they are satisfied with their job overall. 

 

High quality supervision

Our supervisors generally have academic backgrounds from colleges or universities, and most of them are quite familiar with survey method even before becoming supervisors, since we generally recruit our leaders from our competent interviewer staff. We put emphasis on further educating our team leaders through external courses as well as a thorough in-house training that is company specific. For reference the supervisors also have manuals describing the different procedures, systems and routines in use in our field departments.

 

MRP-EURASIA Quality Control Technology for F2F polls

 

Technology “Quality control for quantitative survey”

MRP-EURASIA will be fully responsible for the quality of the interviewers’ work. To prevent questionnaires or parts of them being filled by interviewers themselves, without involvement of any respondent, MRP controllers will perform satisfactory back-checks to prevent such cases.

Each filled questionnaire will be checked by the MRP processing employers for logical errors, and to make sure the questionnaire has been properly filled. If the questionnaire is not properly filled, it should be so filled or, if this is impossible, replaced by another properly filled questionnaire.

The interviewer force of MRP-EURASIA consists mostly of women (60%) aged 25-35 years old with high education (100%). Among them of 85% - with a higher economic, juridical, marketing and management education, the rest have a technical (physics or mathematics) of or philology (psychological), education. All them taking part in polls and other surveys on a regular basis. The interviewers recruited for a survey are trained in regional offices of MRP-EURASIA with the help of the manuals used by Self-Instructional Workbook for Telephone and Personal Interview Training. For each survey a full set of manuals is provided for interviewers and regional supervisors.

MRP-EURASIA has a team of full-time qualitative researchers, moderators and analysts, who work with different targets using a wide range of professional techniques. The projects could be conducted in most of the regions of the ex-Soviet Union (FSU) and EE. The company’s network of regional offices provides a good quality of recruitment and managerial assistance.
At least of 35% of randomly selected questionnaires filled by each interviewer will be checked: 15% of questionnaires will be checked by Supervisors, while of 10% will be checked via post-interview face-to-face call-backs from side of the head-office controllers.
In addition, Supervisors will check of 35% of all interviews on the field during the fieldwork to ensure reliability

§  Supervisors will logically control all interviews completed on the field, and revisit the respondent to ask for confirmation of specific issues if any error or discrepancy occurs

§  At the end of the day, all the interviews will be logically controlled by the supervisors

§  If an error or discrepancy occurs in the interviews of a specific interviewer, rest of his/her interviews will be re-checked.

§  Supervisors will report to project manager all types of error, canceled interviews, re-conducted interviews, performance of interviewers etc.

§  Following the completion of the fieldwork, 50% of all interviews of each interviewer will be logically controlled and all of the interviews made by an interviewer will be re-checked if an error is found in his/her interviews. 

Interviewers will at all time carry a field log in which they record relevant information on what happens in the field in details. The interviewer logs must supply enough information for an independent observer to locate the selected household and to identify the respondent interviewed.

Working day of interviewers will last until 8 interviews are completed. Interviewers will be obliged to submit filled out questionnaires to the supervisor in every day.

 

Separate details of mechanisms of quality control:

Work of interviewers will be controlled on two main positions:

1)    correctness of realization of the last step of selection;

2)    correctness of carrying out interview.

 

Control of quality of work of the interviewer will be performed in several stages:

 

CONTROL OVER CARRYING OUT POLL DURING POLL

1.       visual control at a stage of acceptance of the completed quoted forms;

2.       during computer processing of the array of questionnaires, checking logical communications;

3.       during specially organized control.

 

1.Visual control at a stage of acceptance of the completed quoted forms;

A. Monitoring and assistance to the interviewer during poll

The supervisor needs to visit households with each of interviewers. Results of researches of your this research will be brought in the specialForm "Sheet of the Account".  Special assistance  will be renderedto interviewers for whom, according to the supervisor, the greatestcontrol is necessary(will be followed more often in operating time). The supervisor will immediately report on the chief coordinator of field works at head office concerning any problems which arise in work with the interviewer or when filling questionnaires.

 

B. Direct supervision over carrying out poll

During visit to each of SSU the supervisor will accompany each interviewer from the crew (6 people), at least, in one of households withinone day for an assessment of his / her methods of carrying out poll. The main objective of these estimates is assistance to the interviewer in the best performance of work. The supervisor will do comments/remarks to the interviewer which will help him / her to improve/correct methods of carrying out poll.

Being present at poll at a household, the supervisor should be presented to family members and to explain the reason of his visit and for what data are collected. Spervayzer will not participate in poll or to do remarks to the interviewer during poll, it will allow the interviewer to finish poll in a household. In case of any difficulties in the current interview, the interviewer will be able to ask explanations for the supervisor only on the end of poll.

C. Visual control at a stage of acceptance of questionnaires

Accepting questionnaires at the interviewer, the supervisor will checkthem for completeness of filling. Any question in the questionnaire will not be passed. The completed quoted formsin which one social and demographic question is passed at leastwill not be accepted. In case of detection of admissions of the questionnaire are improved if it is possible by means of specification of answers at the respondent. It is important to check the questionnaire from the point of view oflogical communications and transitions. It is possible to carry the analysis of time spent by the interviewer for carrying out poll to indirect methods of visual control. Here too it is possible to be guided by average values on group.

The interviewer clearly imaginesthat the questionnaire is filled in personally with him a ball pen with blue, violet or black paste, accurately. All working corrections become uniformly: mistakenly recorded code is crossed out cross-wise. All corrections made to the questionnaire by the supervisor will be executed in other color, for example, by green.

The supervisor will carry out visual control, as a rule, in the presence of the interviewer therefore he will be able immediately to state the first impression of a controlled array of questionnaires.

2. During computer processing of the array of questionnaires, checking logical communications:

A. Computer control

Modern software of MRP-EURASIAallow to estimate as the massif which arrived from poll point in general and work of the certain interviewer from the point of view of a deviation of the received results from an average. Computer control can give the supervisor information that this or that interviewer has more standard of answers "I find it difficult to answer"," I do not know", refusals of interview or replacements. These data have to become a subject of discussion with the specific interviewer and group in general, and the supervisor can introduce amendments in the program of training or focus attention on these problems in time instrugolovnyKodekstazha. Computer control can give the greatest value from the point of view of check of difficult logical communications which are not possible for monitoring "approximately" usually.

3. During specially organized control:

A. Special control poll.

In the conditions of short terms of implementation of the project, our original scheme - continuous tracking of "noise" in the organization of work with interviewers is submitted expedient.

Not less than 10% of the completed questionnaires will be subjected to field control from the supervisor. The best method of field control of work of interviewers is repeated visit of the respondent by the special interviewer controller (and the supervisor). It checks whether the respondent was correctly selected, whether methodical methods of carrying out interview were broken, whether there was no influence on answers by the "third"persons, obtains information on what impression at the respondent remained about work of the interviewer. The control questionnaire usually joins several substantial questions of the questionnaire of research.