The power of the interviewer: A qualitative perspective on African survey data collection
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African censuses and surveys remain dependent on interviewers for data collection. Data quality is assured through training and supervision. Many survey concepts are difficult to translate into African languages and some, such as "household", may have mult
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Educational attainment could be one of the most impacting characteristics of the researcher's positionality, especially when interviewing participants with much less education.
“Some suggest that educational attainment could be one of the most impacting characteristics of the positionality of the researcher, especially when interviewing participants who have received much less education (Randall, et al, 2013).”
From A GROUNDED THEORY EXPLORATION OF WELLBEING FOR WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN FORCIBLY DISPLACED AS A RESULT OF TRAUMA CAUSED BY CONFLICT, BASED ON THE EXPERIENCE OF PARTICIPANTS LIVING IN UGANDA (2025) · cites this paper as Randall, et al, 2013
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“…emphasise, the absence of a widely accepted local word for ‘household’ reflects the obstacles in operationalising such a concept for a survey, whether of a small or large N, and underscores the power of interviewers in translating these concepts into something meaningful (Randall et al. 2013).”
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“Interviews in different African countries (Randall et al. 2011, 2013; Kriel et al. 2014) have demonstrated that even a single definition of the household can elicit understandings, practices, and interpretations that vary according to the status, training, and experience of statistics producers and…”
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“…sample drawn from a large population, are a valuable resource for data as they can include questions on a wide range of topics such as population and health (Pullum, Juan, Khan, & Staveteig, 2018; Randall, Coast, Compaore, & Antoine, 2013) and are more economical and relatively less time-consuming.”
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“In agreement with other recent studies (Bignamivan Assche et al., 2003; Johnson et al., 2009; Randall et al., 2013), our analyses call for closer consideration, when interpreting results, of interviewer effects, survey protocol design and fieldwork supervision.”
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- Authors
- Randall, S., Coast, E., Compaore, N., & Antoine, P.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- London School of Economics and Political Science (GB)
- Institut Superieur Des Sciences De La Population (BF)
- Centre Population et Développement (FR)
- Venue
- Demographic Research
- Published
- 2013-04-09
- Volume
- 28
- Pages
- 763-792
- ISSN
- 1435-9871 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1891763786
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 6
- FWCI
- 18.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Demographic Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/F03489X/1, ES/H043705/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Survey Sampling and Estimation Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Census and Population Estimation
- Keywords
- interviewers, survey data collection, data quality, interviewer training, African languages, household definition
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