Supervision of Fieldworkers to Minimize Errors
Class – Even if we are using highly experienced fieldworkers, supervision of fieldworkers is critical. Supervisors need to gather and edit questionnaires every day. Supervisors should ensure that field processes and procedures are being properly followed and that interviews are taking place on schedule. Supervisors must also ensure that the correct sampling units are being used and check to see that the proper people are responding in the research study. Supervisors check for interviewer ethical problems and creating and must verify sections of the interviews by re-interviewing a certain percentage of each fieldworker’s respondents.
What do you think of the practice of re-interviewing some of the participants that were interviewed by the fieldwork to check for cheating? Can you think of anything else that supervisors can do to further minimize errors in these interviews and sampling processes?