Ballots & Bullets | School of Politics & International Relations, Uni-

versity of Nottingham
!

Survey Fatigue and the Search for

‘Good’ Data: post-disaster strategies
Published by Editor on June 2, 2016

Written by Claire L. Berja. 0

Like

Leyte in the Eastern Visayas of the Philippines was one of the areas hardest
hit by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Tacloban, the city that became the ‘poster
town’ of the disaster, is located in Leyte facing the Pacific Ocean at the head of
the Leyte Gulf. Leyte is one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines. There
is a high incidence of poverty and many people also move in and out of
poverty (transient poverty) due to a high degree of vulnerability to shocks.

Typhoon Yolanda left many people devastated. It did not discriminate by class. In the af-
termath of disasters the wealthy tend to be able to rehabilitate themselves more quickly,
as they may have savings or extended family support to fall back on. However in the im-
mediate aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda the devastation was total in many areas. In the
longer term the disaster increased poverty overall.

Post disaster relief efforts require good data. Good data helps aid agencies efficiently
target the victims of disaster. It also helps to scale up rehabilitation efforts in a sustain-
able fashion. The need for good data probably explains why aid agencies conducted their
own surveys in areas devastated by Typhoon Yolanda. The specific data needs of aid
agencies were not otherwise readily available. Immediately after the typhoon the relief
operations of UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) made use of the national
household targeting system of the Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD). However, the list included only the beneficiaries of the government run condi-
tional cash transfer program. There was no list of non-beneficiaries.

Two years after the Yolanda disaster our team gathered data on poverty alleviation in
selected communities in Tacloban, Palo and Tanauan. We selected 20 barangays, 17 most
affected and three least affected. We surveyed 800 households and conducted a number
of focus groups. I expected that data gathering would be challenging because of the
sensitivity of the subject matter but in general people were willing to participate in our
study. Many of respondents were able to answer questions swiftly but some expressed
survey ‘fatigue’. I observed that surveys had become a routine for beneficiaries of Yolan-
da aid. Many respondents considered surveys as their “ticket” to aid or a way to be in-
cluded in the “listahan” (list of those who will be given aid) so they participated even with
hesitance.

It is important to address survey fatigue because it could severely affect the quality of
the data gathered. Having gone through different types of surveys, including rapid needs
assessment surveys, social surveys, impact surveys and evaluation surveys, in all post
disaster phases respondents can understandably develop survey fatigue. This can lead to
overly brief answers or responses that simply follow the path of least resistance.

Survey fatigue can also be experienced during the course of an interview. Considering
that the average attention span of adults is only 20 minutes, long interviews must be
avoided. In our survey, to minimize the length of interviews, we included only questions
relevant to the research objectives. Questions were worded simply so that they were
easy to understand. The logical and chronological sequencing of questions also helped
our respondents to answer the survey. This also helped respondents to remember facts.
Interviews rely a lot on memory recall so this also impacts on data quality. It is the re-
sponsibility of the field researchers to come prepared for the interviews. Survey inter-
views go smoothly when the interviewer knows what questions to ask. Clear questions
result in clear answers and comparable data.

The quality of the research is also contingent on trust. Building a relationship of trust is
important for community based research. Our project is set to run over three years
(2015-2018). Our fieldworkers will be regular visitors so it is important that we are ac-
cepted in and trusted by the communities. People share their experiences, thoughts and
feelings only to those whom they trust. Honesty and integrity throughout the study is
important. We make it clear to the respondents that they will not receive any aid or
grant, bar a token gift for their time, for participating in the research. We are also aware
that the best people to conduct surveys at the community level are members of the com-
munities themselves. For this reason we have hired recently graduated students from
the communities to help with data gathering. Foreigners and even researchers from Ma-
nila could distort survey respondent answers simply by their presence. There is the
danger that respondents could exaggerate their plight in the expectation that aid would
be forthcoming.

During training sessions we were also able to tap into the fieldworkers’ local knowledge
of how questions would be perceived. For instance they pointed out that the distinction
between community and family is blurred in many communities as extended families are
the norm. Therefore the distinction between helping your family and helping your com-
munity is a blurred line. Many respondents are also most comfortable speaking in the
local Waray language so it made sense to hire fieldworkers with approprate language
skills.

We also deliberately avoided working in our chosen communities during the recent elec-
tion period as respondents could have tailored their answers to favour their preferred
candidates or condemn those that they did not support. The distribution of goods to
voters during the election campaign could also have rendered our token gifts less at-
tractive to respondents.

It is important that aid agencies and academics consider the issues listed above as ‘rub-
bish in’ leads to ‘rubbish out’ for data gathering. Good data on the other hand can help
identify real need and craft sustaianble rehabilitation strategies that are guided by the
beneficiaries themselves.
Claire L. Berja is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines, Manila. She
is currently working on the ESRC/DFID funded project ‘Poverty Alleviation in the Wake
of Typhoon Yolanda’. You can follow this project on Facebook as Project_Yolanda and
Twitter @Project_Yolanda. Image credit: CC by Dvidshub/Flickr.

Share this:

       

Related Posts:

1. Disaster, Resilience and the Importance of Community

2. Disaster, Development and Urban Risk: a comment on the Sendai
Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
3. Typhoon Yolanda Survivors Need More than Pro-poor Rhetoric from
Politicians
4. On Disasters and the Yolanda/Haiyan Experience

Published in Asia Philippines Project Yolanda

Previous Post
World Humanitarian Summit- a new way of solving the old problem?

Next Post
Enforcing the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name*

Email*

Website

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Post Comment
Author WordPress Theme by Compete Themes