Internship Diaries : The Observer

July 9, 2015

  We were assigned to gather data or conduct survey in Glorietta. I was adviced that today I and Jao won’t be conducting interviews instead we will do OB, or be the observer while the interviewers conduct the survey. We are briefed on what to point out, what should we watch for, basically the standard etiquette upon surveying. We meet two of MRC’s field interviewers. Jao, my internship buddy and I chose an interviewer to observe. It's quite awkward because I knew these two we're long time field interviewers already and I am just an intern who will technically supervise them. Challenging also because I have to me meticulous when it comes to quality and error for the validity of the survey.

   I chose Ate Cass, she was a fine interviewer. She was good overall though at the first two surveys she did I notice big mistakes from her. Like for example she forgot to use the show cards, these are guide answers for the respondents, and she did not emphasize all the options for the respondents. Sometimes she is leading the respondent so that show bias. Leading to an answer which is not really intended by the respondents.

    After each survey we are discussing does issues to avoid in the future. There is one time where Ate Cass finished a survey but unfortunately the respondent was not qualified when we label his social economic status so she needed to redo the survey to another respondents. It was relieving to accomplish the task fast. It’s just 2 pm when we finished the quota so Ms.Aileen and us, interns decided to just go and report to MRC's office. At the office we continue editing the questionnaires. Editing is the process of rechecking the papers if all questions are asked and skipping questions are skipped. Then Ms.Aileen and Ms.Paz taught us how to fill up the Evaluation sheet from the outcome of our observation. There is a form with guide standards for us to fill upon evaluating the interviewers. Afterwards they showed us how to do backchecking, Backchecking is hard I think because you need to call each respondents and verify the accuracy of the survey. Ms.Paz called one respondent to demonstrate for us. The respondents answered the phone but then drop it. He then sent a text message stating that he is busy and Yes, he was interviewed. We tried another respondent and the back checking went smooth.