Our field staff is at the epicentre of good quality data.
Outline India believes in ensuring data quality at each step of the research cycle, right from study design, data collection, to sharing findings. These include-
- Field training by researchers who work directly with the partner, including classroom, and mock exercises
- Unannounced field visits by core staff
- Multiple levels of data reporting across coordinators, supervisors, field workers and resaerchers
- Back checks
- Audio and text audits
- End of day discussions
- Enumerator and geography level data checking by quantitative researcher
We qualitatively pre-test survey tools in a location with a similar socio-demographic profile to the study site. This helps us check consistency, appropriateness of translation, relevance, and context, as well as uncovering inconsistencies.
Through our learnings from the pre-test, we prepare detailed training manuals for each study in consultation with the client, to ensure clarity and standardization in data collection.
Field workers are trained on the background of the evaluation, a question-by-question overview of the survey tool, cultural sensitivity, and ethical research considerations, technical training, obtaining informed consent, data security and data transfer. Training includes field mocks and debriefing sessions so that we can resolve any outstanding issues before data collection begins.
Post the training period, our researchers stay on the field for initial days to monitor each field worker, clarify doubts, address linguistic and comprehension inconsistencies and implement the sampling strategy. The Field Manager continues to stay on the field for additional days to provide ongoing support.
We make sure to regularly obtain ethical approvals for our projects. We ensure the privacy of our respondents, and thereby take all the necessary precautions to keep their responses confidential.
We use digital data collection devices like Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) platforms to conduct face-to-face interviews. Through CAPI we incorporate hints and instructions for field workers, record and visualize the location of interviews, take pictures, switch languages and monitor data in real-time.
Before each project, we put together project-specific field teams who have cultural and linguistic familiarity along with relevant domain experience. The finalized teams are established from their performance post-training by our researchers, based on standardized performance assessment protocols.
There is a ceiling limit to the number of interviews that a surveyor can conduct in a day, to ensure quality. The duration of each interview is recorded and included in the final data set.
Each survey form and data point goes through three levels of approvals and quality checks – Field Supervisor, Field Manager, and Data Manager. We can troubleshoot inconsistencies and errors, and re-train/debrief individual field workers in real-time. Additionally, we conduct telephonic and in-person back-checks.
For qualitative data collection, we re-visit recordings and field notes to ensure that transcriptions are accurate and context is provided to make sense of them.
After each study we put together a field report: detailing data collection context and progress, documenting field definitions and assumptions and providing recommendations.
Purpose
Outline India is committed to protecting any personal information that we may receive while you access our website/survey and mobile application. We believe it is important for you to know how we treat information about you that we may receive when you engage with us. This Privacy Policy is devised to help you feel more confident about the privacy and security of your personal details. 'You' shall mean You, the User of the Website/survey/ Application and ‘Yourself’ interpreted accordingly. 'We' / 'Us' means Outline India and 'Our' interpreted accordingly. 'Users' means the Users of the Website/survey/ application collectively and/or individually as the context allows.
Eligibility
The Website/survey/ Mobile application/survey is intended for all persons who are interested in learning about digital skills, the Indian Start-up Eco system and seek opportunities and knowledge related to Digital skills.
The Information We Collect
We receive both information that is directly provided to Us, such as personal information You provide when You visit the Website/survey/ mobile application/survey, and information that is passively or automatically collected from You, such as information collected from the browser or device You used to access Our Website/survey or Services. In this Privacy Policy, we refer to all this as the ‘User Information’. To explain further,
• Information You Provide To Us. There are portions of this Website/survey / Application where We may need to collect personal information from You for a specific purpose. For e.g. You can register, apply for partner services, seek out enabler connects. In the course of these various offerings, We often seek to collect from You various forms of information, such as: name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number and business details. At some instances, You may also be able to submit Information about your business plan. For example, You might submit answers specific to your business / idea for an innovation challenge or hunt posted on the portal.
• Information That is Automatically Collected. In general, You can visit this Website/survey/survey without telling Us who You are or revealing any information about Yourself. We, and Our third party service providers or other partners (collectively ‘Partners’) may use automated means to collect various types of Information about You, Your computer or other device used to access Our Website/survey. A representative, non-exhaustive list of the types of automatically collected information may include: network or Internet protocol address and type of browser You are using (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer), the type of operating system You are using, (e.g., Microsoft Windows or Mac OS), mobile network, device identifiers, device settings, browser settings, the web pages of the Website/survey You have visited, Website/survey visited before and after You visited our Website/survey, the type of handheld or mobile device used to view the Website/survey (e.g., iOS, Android), location information, and the content and advertisements You have accessed, seen, forwarded and/or clicked on. Please see our Section titled Cookies, for more information about how the foregoing Information may be collected and used.
How We May Use The User Information
By entering Your User Information, You accept that We may retain Your User Information and that it may be held by Us or any Partners that processes it on Our behalf. We, along with Our Partners, shall be entitled to Use Your User Information for the following purposes:
• Provide and communicate with You about feedback, follow up on programs you’ve applied for or queries submitted to the team
• Fulfil your requests regarding the services, including without limitation respond to your inquiries, communicate with You about our products or services that We believe may be of interest to you
• Enforce the legal terms (including without limitation our policies and terms of service) that govern your use of our Services, and/or for the purposes for which you provided the Information
• Provide technical support for the Website/survey or in connection with Our services and Offerings
• Prevent fraud or potentially illegal activities (including, without limitation, copyright infringement) on or through Our Website/survey or Services
• Protect the safety of our other subscribers or Users
• Perform analysis regarding how you use the Services or any part thereof such market research, including statistical analysis of User behaviour which We may disclose to third parties in depersonalized, aggregated form
• In order to enable Us to comply with any requirements imposed on Us by law
• In order to send You periodic communications (this may include e-mail), about features, products and services, events and special offers. Such communications from Us may include promotion of programs being organized by third parties on our website/survey.
Cookies and Web Beacons
You should be aware that information and data may be automatically collected through the Use of Cookies or web beacons or similar tracking technologies. "Cookies" are text files placed in your computer browser that store basic information that a Website/survey can use to recognize repeat site visits and as an example, recall Your name if this has been previously supplied. We may use this to understand Your service and internet usage, observe behaviour and compile aggregate data in order to improve or customize our products, services offerings or the Website/survey, target the advertising and assess general effectiveness of such advertising. Cookies do not attach to Your system and damage Your files. If You do not want information collected through the Use of Cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows You to deny or accept the Cookie feature.
Note, however, that "personalized" services may be affected if the cookie option is disabled. For example, We may use Cookies to personalize Your experience at our Services (e.g., to recognize You by name when You return to Our Website/survey), save your password in password-protected areas. We also may use Cookies or other tracking technologies to help Us offer You products, offerings or services that may be of interest to You when You visit this Website/survey. We or a third party platform with whom We work may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser to enable You to receive customized offers, services on this Website/survey. These Cookies contain no information intended to identify You personally. The Cookies may be associated with de-identified demographic or other data linked to or derived from data You voluntarily have submitted to Us (e.g., your email address) that we may share with a service provider solely in hashed, non-human readable form. We and our Partners may also use "web beacons" or clear GIFs, or similar technologies, which are small pieces of code placed on Our Website/survey or in an email, to monitor the behaviour and collect data about the visitors viewing Our Website/survey or email. For example, web beacons may be used to count the users who visit a web page or to deliver a cookie to the browser of a visitor viewing that Website/survey. Web beacons may also be used to provide information on the effectiveness of our email campaigns (e.g., open rates, clicks, forwards, etc.).
Security and Data Storing
Security is very important to Us. All security procedures are in place to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of Your User Information. We maintain strict physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to protect Your User Information including your personal information from unauthorized or inappropriate access. We follow generally accepted standards to collect, store and protect personal data, including the use of encryption. We retain personal data for as long as it is needed to provide the services you have requested, and thereafter for legal and service purposes. These may include retention periods mandated by legal, contractual, or similar obligations; for resolving, preserving, enforcing or defending our legal and contractual rights; needed to maintain adequate and accurate business and financial records or how you access, update, or delete your data etc. This website/survey will take all reasonable efforts to ensure the confidentiality of personal data, uploaded information etc. and will take reasonable efforts to ensure that the information received from you is not misused. This website/survey also reveals personal data/information uploaded by you in connection with any lawful process. While this website/survey will take the above reasonable measures to guard against misuse of personal data/information submitted to it by you, this website/survey cannot guarantee that someone will not overcome our security measures, including, without limitation, the security measures implemented on this Web site. Therefore, your posting of personal data/ information on this Web site constitutes your acceptance of this risk, and by posting of personal data/information, you waive any right to seek legal relief from this website/survey due to any misuse of your information.
Information Sharing and Disclosures
We may disclose the User Information as follows:
• To service providers or Partners that we have engaged to perform business-related functions on our behalf. This may include service providers that:
(a) conduct research and analytics.
(b) create content.
(c) provide customer, technical or operational support.
(d) conduct or support marketing (such as email or advertising platforms).
(e) fulfil orders and user requests.
(g) host our Services, forums and online communities.
(h) administer the Website/survey.
(i) maintain databases.
(j) otherwise support our Services.
• Any answers submitted by you for a specific program or innovation challenge will be shared with the partners who are a part of that specific Innovation Hunt.
• In response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena, a law enforcement or government agency's request or similar request.
• With third parties in order to investigate, prevent, or take action (in our sole discretion) regarding potentially illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to any person, us, or the Website/survey, or violations of our policies, the law or our Terms of Use, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Website/survey.
• We may share the User Information with Our affiliates or group companies, so they can provide, improve and communicate with You about their own, or their marketing partners’ products and services.
• We reserve the right to disclose and transfer the User Information outside India. We will comply with all relevant Data Protection legislation in relation to the period for which We retain any User Information.
Linked Services
Our Website/survey may contain links to or integrations with other services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other media services and platforms whose information practices may be different than ours. Visitors should consult these other services' privacy notices as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.
Acceptance of the Policy: By visiting our website/survey, signing up or logging into the website/survey, uploading information on our website/survey; you acknowledge and unconditionally accept the policy. If you do not agree with this Policy, do not use our website/survey and services or provide here any of your personal data.
Governing Law and Jurisdiction
This Privacy Policy is governed by and operated in accordance with the laws of India. If any of the parties wish to seek legal recourse, they may do so by using the courts of law in New Delhi.
Being on field is an adventure in itself. All field missions are unique, bringing strange, funny, and on occasions disturbing anecdotes to help us learn and grow as researchers.
“How do you clean your hands?”
“With mud”, he answered.
“Could you show us?”
He
walked over to the tap, diligently scrubbed his hands with water, applied soap
and washed it off. No mud ever entered the process.
It
was a study to understand hand hygiene practices, and we were using a survey
tool, enumerators’ observations and spot checks to understand how people washed
their hands. The rationale for using multiple methods was to check how people
washed their hands, without trying to impress the enumerator or changing their
behavior because they were being watched.
As
this example shows, different tools found different answers. Yet it was
difficult to reconcile the findings during analysis as there was no
accompanying qualitative data to explain why the respondent would say one thing
and do another. Luckily, during the pre-test, our researchers had noticed this.
We found that respondents, who had interacted with peer educators telling them
to wash their hands with soap and water, thought they were being asked to show
the ideal way to wash hands and not how they normally do it.
“What's your age didi?”
“17”, she giggles, her grey hair
glinting in the sunlight.
“Didi are you sure you are 17?”
“Yes, Yes”
Concepts
of time and space in some rural areas aren’t the same as Western ones. Yet
almost every survey you come across asks the question - ‘what’s your age?’ Over
the years, we have developed strategies to answer this question.
For
young children, we check their government-issued MCP card. If they don’t have
one, we ask if they were born before or after the most recent local natural
disasters and then make an educated guess. For adolescent girls, we ask how
long ago they started menstruating, and use the average age of menstruation to
calculate. For men, we ask family members and neighbors.
And
for the didi we met in Bihar, we asked if she was alive when India became
independent? Turns out she was.
Respondents don’t just stay at the field
site – they move around over time. Especially in rural areas, members of the
household often migrate to nearby cities or urban areas in search of work. But
what happens when we are required to conduct a baseline, midline as well as an
end-line study in the same location with the same respondents? You may not find
your respondents in their home all year round. And this is exactly what
happened to us!
We
were conducting an end-line study in Rajasthan in November, but just couldn’t
find the baseline respondents we had surveyed earlier. We knocked on their
homes only to find from the family members that the original respondent had migrated
either to Gujarat to harvest cotton or to Punjab to sow wheat.
Lesson learned: Look at migration patterns and cropping cycles before
deciding on study phases!
A loo isn’t supposed to be pretty but
this one was. A bright yellow building, newly painted, it gleamed in the sun.
The teacher who was guiding us pointed it out proudly – “that’s the girls’
toilets” she said.
“Can
we go in?” we asked. “It’s locked” she stammered. “Don’t you have the key?” we
asked, wondering why anyone would lock a toilet. By this time the School Principal had joined us. We told him it was a beautiful building and could we
look inside? Again he didn’t seem keen, but he unlocked the building.
And
inside was a bare floor, no latrine, no tap, not even a hole.
It was during an interview with a
school principal, a well-respected man in the community. The respondent was all
too happy to cooperate, answering our researcher’s questions at length. But in
the middle of the interview, he paused and grabbed her hand, explaining that he
holds the hands of disobedient children. But he didn’t let go.
She
finished the interview, extracted her hand and left with her colleagues. But it
shook us all up, an unnerving and unwelcome incident. For the remaining
interviews, we asked a male field worker to accompany our female staff, and
there were no more incidents. But as an organization, we do vehemently defend
and uphold our independence and work towards making the development sector
gender-neutral. This was a sad setback.
She had been following us for hours.
Survey after survey, a steady shadow that dogged our steps despite the mid-day
heat, at the height of the Delhi summer. “Didi, why are you here?” we finally
asked. “Survey me as well” she answered.
She
wasn’t one of our randomly selected respondents. The survey was long, almost
two hours, and we normally had to beg respondents to take it, not fend them
off. “Didi, why do you want to be surveyed?” we asked. Her answer was garbled
with her passion but with some help from her neighbors, we finally got the
story.
A
couple of years ago, another set of researchers had visited and administered
surveys. Like us, they were randomly choosing respondents. But unlike us, it was
for the baseline of Randomized Control Trial where the selected respondents
were given monetary and technical help to construct houses. She hadn’t been
selected, but her neighbors had. And she had watched over the years, as they
built their fancy homes while she was forced to live in her shack. Determined
not to be omitted from a survey again, she now makes sure that surveyors
include her.
“Aapke ghar mein kitne purush rehte hain?”
“Purush?”
“Kitne aadmi rehte hain?”
She glared at us.
Did we make a mistake? Yes, we did. In Rajasthan, the
word aadmi denotes “husbands”, not men. For our respondent,
the question translated to “How many husbands do you have?” No wonder she was
offended.
We
wanted to know the number of male members living in the households. Finally,
after apologies, some subtle probing we got the number.
Lesson
learned: There are more linguistic variations than what we might be aware of.
So be wary while translating!
The village was,
as is often the case, remote – 3 to 5 kilometers from the nearest road. Coming
in we were met with stares instantly, our guide, a local ASHA, told us that
outsiders were rare. This wasn’t unique but odd to us. The villagers followed
us around, tense, listening carefully to what we were saying in our unfamiliar
accents. Our study – on the topic of sexual
and reproductive health – was a sensitive one and we were to talk to young
adolescents in groups by themselves. The village members were clearly not happy
with this, and although the village’s ASHA and Mukhiya supported us, we were
not welcome. We ended up having a small group discussion with the few
adolescents whose parents were comfortable. We left quickly, the villagers
followed us to ensure that we were gone.
“Why were we met with so much hostility?”
We asked the ASHA, the Mukhiya, and the few friendly respondents. Soon the
story came out – there were rumored cases of outsiders luring children away
from a neighboring village, and harvesting their organs. Us, strangers coming
in and wanting to speak privately with children had unknowingly triggered the
villagers’ fears.
For institutional review boards, the
ethics are clear – you go to a village, you get informed consent, tell the
respondent the risks and benefits, talk to the respondent privately so that
they are not ostracized for their views and then you leave. We had followed
these best practices and more, going ahead and talking to the ASHA and Mukhiya,
explaining our study and gaining their support. But the backlash still
happened. How do you get data from a place that doesn’t trust you?
A question on the labor status of an
individual seems pretty easy to explain when looked at from the outside. But as
you delve deeper into it, you discover the multiple layers. In a training
session that we conducted, while giving examples on how to categorize an
individual's current labor status,
one field enumerator asked, "What is the kind of employment of a
priest?"
Another
enumerator answered, "Self-employed".
This
led to a long drawn discussion among the field enumerators on how it is neither
of the above and the ambiguity had to be resolved with the following
explanation, given the context of the assignment. A priest employed by a temple
trust and paid a monthly salary will be categorized as a "salaried
employee". On the other hand, a priest who conducts ceremonies as and when
required at houses of people or other places will be marked as
"other" in the options list and be specifically listed as a "daily
wage earner”. This simple question of a field enumerator led to a very
important probe being incorporated in implementing the survey instrument as and
when such a response is received.
Lesson
learned - Even the simplest of questions come with its own set of connotations
and may require in-depth probing to arrive at the desired answer.
We are taught to
expect the unexpected when on the field. However, little did we expect what befell
us in Araria, Bihar. Since our guide contained sensitive questions and the
respondents were 15-19-year-old girls, we requested privacy to conduct our
focus group discussions in the local primary school. However, the next day when
we returned to the school, we were surrounded by a crowd of agitated villagers
who refused to let us continue for fear that we may kidnap their children.
Eventually, after we managed to calm them
down, we thoroughly explained the purpose of the study to them. However, the
situation had spiraled to such an extent that we had to exit that village and
drop it from our sample. It was only later that we found out that the reason
for such animosity towards outsiders stemmed from an incident that had occurred
a couple of months ago. Apparently, two young girls of the village were taken
to Mumbai on the pretext of getting employment. Instead, their organs were
harvested and they were sent back to the village on a train.
Lesson learned: We should have entered the
village a day prior to our interviews and explained our study to the Pradhan.
This would also have helped us gain the confidence of our respondents.
The first step to
smooth data collection is to develop a well thought out and sound field plan.
However, even meticulous planning cannot always prepare you for the curve-balls
that are thrown your way when you are on the field. In such situations,
thinking on your feet and improvising are the only ways to ensure that data
collection progresses unhindered. Improvisation was our greatest tool in
completing our fieldwork in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
However, we did learn a valuable lesson.
The greatest take away from our field
experience in West Bengal was to never enter the field without all prerequisite
permissions and clearances. The study was to understand the role played by
elected representatives of Gram Panchayats in local governance and development.
Due to the politically sensitive nature of this study in a politically volatile
environment characterized by the polarization of parties, elected representatives
in many of the Gram Panchayats expressed distrust, and suspicion towards the
motives of such an exercise, refusing to consent to be surveyed in the
absence of formal permission from local authorities. As such, we faced great
difficulty on the field in meeting the initial sample requirements and had to
modify our sampling strategy mid-way which had many operational and budgetary
implications.
Lesson Learned: It is imperative to get
requisite permissions from local bodies, as far as possible, before entering
the field for data collection. While this may not be necessary for household
studies, it is absolutely vital for studies that are politically sensitive.
Often while
doing fieldwork, we come across respondents who don’t understand the
questionnaire and tend to interrogate more about the same. They usually find questions bizarre and challenging.
Subscribe to our newsletter