FIELD PROCEDURES

LO
• Introduce the concept of selection of centres for field work
• Explain the concept of quotas and targets on the field
• Explain how respondents are actually selected
• Explain how the field supervisor controls the field staff to minimise
cheating and nonsampling error
• Describe the need for briefing of the field staff and debriefing by
them
 DESIGN OF FIELD WORK
• We are dealing with primary data collection for most part of this
book. Field work is a very important component of it. In India usually,
field work is done physically by interviewing people at homes, offices,
or on the streets.
 SELECTION OF CITIES/CENTRES
• Once the centres for field work are finalised, it has to be organised in
each of these places. The research agency may or may not have its
own offices in each of the centres. If it has an office, a field supervisor
from the office is sent a written brief and a copy of the questionnaire,
and asked to recruit a field force and conduct a briefing for them
 QUOTAS
• Most large consumer marketing research studies have quotas for
demographics like age, income, sex of the respondent. This is because
the output has to be analysed by these characteristics. It is the job of
the field supervisor to see that these quotas are achieved. In practice,
these quotas are achieved by selecting residential areas whose
resident profile is known, particularly the income profile
 SELECTION OF RESPONDENTS
• The field supervisor actually leads the team of field workers on the
field, and instructs them on how to select a household. For example,
they may be told to select every third apartment in a block of 10
apartments. If the respondent is not of the required characteristics, or
is not available, an alternative is given to the field worker. He may be
permitted to try the neighbour’s door, for example, in such a case.
The field worker has a tendency, usually, to overdo things by selecting
too many similar respondents from the same block, street, or area.
The field supervisor has to control this tendency, because this may
lead to an over-representation of one type of respondent, and under-
representation of other types.
 CONTROL PROCEDURES ON THE
FIELD
• To ensure that a field worker is doing his job, the field supervisor can
randomly go back to a few addresses and talk to the respondents to
ensure that they were interviewed accurately. This is known as a call-
back, and is one of the most commonly used control procedures on
the field. It also ensures that there is no cheating by interviewers.
Otherwise, there may be an interviewer who is not honest, and may
do only a few interviews, and fill up other questionnaires without
doing the interviews. The callback serves the dual purpose of
minimising cheating and also verifying the accuracy of the answers by
re-asking some of the important questions. Field control procedures
reduce non-sampling errors.
 BRIEFING
• Before the field workers are sent on the field to do interviews, they
are given a thorough briefing by the field supervisor. At this time, they
generally go through a couple of mock interviews to ensure that they
understand the questions, the answer categories, and the sequence.
The field workers can also clarify any doubts they may have regarding
the sample selection process, and the quotas for income, age, or any
other variables.
 DEBRIEFING
• After returning from field work on Day One of the study in a given
centre, there is usually a debriefing session where any problems in
the field are discussed, and solutions found by the supervisor. It may
also be desirable to have a debriefing session at the end of the survey
in a city, to summarise the main findings, and discuss any special
comments or answers given by respondents in a city.
•Thankyou