Survey Firm TOR

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Detailed TORs are essential! Specify all expectations and consequences if expectations are not met. Then monitor, monitor, monitor! Provide feedback early and often. Note that any changes to survey protocols or sampling that deviate from the TOR must be confirmed in writing. If there are cost implications, a contract modification may be required.

Guidelines

Scope of Work

Tasks best done by Survey Firm

1. Obtaining necessary permits or clearance for the survey
2. Translation & Field Testing of all questionnaires
3. Detailed Field Procedure Plan
4. Recruitment, training, and contracting of experienced field staff
5. Household survey data collection

Tasks best done by the Impact Evaluation Team

1. Questionnaire Design
2. Survey Pilot
3. Questionnaire Programming
4. Sampling
5. Monitoring Data Quality
6. Data Cleaning
7. Data Analysis

The Field Coordinator should work closely with survey firm every step of the process.

Example of recommended level of detail

Activity 5 : Household survey data collection Train all enumerators, supervisors, and data manager on the administration of questionnaires provided by the research team. The training should also serve as a screening process for skilled interviewers. Consequently, the survey company must recruit more interviewers for the training than will be ultimately hired for the project. Five enumerators should be included in the training as a reserve. The following components must be included in the training:

• Theoretical: Training should include a review the theory of the questionnaire and each question in order for trainees to fully understand the objective of each question. Standard quantitative interviewing techniques and field protocols should also be covered.
• Classroom practice: Training should include individual and group exercises for trainees to become familiar with the practice of asking questions and filling questionnaires. This part of the training may include in-class demonstrations, where the questionnaire is projected and one interviewer completes the questionnaire in front of the classroom. The training may also use vignettes, where the company designs case scenarios based on typical households (perhaps those found during the supervisor training or piloting) and have interviewers complete the questionnaire based on the vignette. Finally, the trainees should conduct pilot interviews on the same subject, and have the interviewers complete a questionnaire for the interview to test consistency across interviewers.
• Field practice: After the theoretical and classroom practice, the interviewers should go to the field to administer the full questionnaire to a small number of households (outside the study sample). The pre-test should not focus on major adjustments to the questionnaire, but rather simulate the administration of the questionnaire under normal circumstances. All field team members must demonstrate they clearly understand their roles and are correctly following the survey protocols.
• Evaluation: Following the training, interviewers, supervisors and data managers should be evaluated based on their understanding of the questionnaire and their ability to correctly record data.

The training period will conclude only when the field teams have demonstrated mastery of the designated tasks. Decisions as to which field staff will take part in the data collection must be made on the basis of this evaluation.

Deliverables

Review of deliverables is the formal (and enforceable) way to provide feedback to the firm. It is important to assess quality and provide feedback early and often.

Deliverables should be ...

• Spaced throughout the contract (not only the final report at the end of the survey). Include a deliverable for each major stage of the process.
• Specified as a detailed list, with intermediate outputs
• Clearly indicated quality standards and consequences for not meeting the standards

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This article is part of the topic Survey Firm Procurement

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