Field Work
Slide 1
Whether conducting a survey or an observational study, someone needs to collect respondent
data. The activity of collecting that data and monitoring its collection is called field work.
Slide 2
Field workers are supplied either by a field interviewing service—a company whose mission is
to provide field workers—or through in-house interviewers. A company may be able to hire
people whose job either temporarily or permanently is to collect survey and observational data.
Slide 3
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is responsible for training field workers to
collect survey or observational data properly. If it’s done by the field service, then those costs
are passed on to clients. If done in-house, then the company is responsible for those costs.
Regardless, someone must train field workers; otherwise, the quality of the data they collect will
be questionable.
Slide 4
There’s skill in securing an interview. Getting one’s foot in the door or getting the door slammed
in one’s face are two alternatives faced by field service workers conducting personal interviews.
Slide 5
Regardless of whether the data is collected via a personal interview or a telephone interview, it’s
important for interviewers to do certain things. They should ask every question exactly as
worded. That way, one source of variability is eliminated. Respondents often indicate that they
don’t understand a question posed by an interviewer. Respondents assume, as in normal
conversation, that an interviewer will rephrase that question. Unfortunately, to do so would add
variability associated with different interviewers asking different, although similar, questions.
Thus, interviewers only should repeat the question exactly as worded and the respondent either
does or doesn’t understand it. If they didn’t understand, then the interviewer can note that on the
questionnaire, so that answer subsequently can be ignored or addressed during the data coding
and entry process. (For example, the respondent could be re-contacted via telephone and reasked the question in a controlled way.)
Interviewers should read questions slowly. Although they may be familiar with the questions
after conducting a 200th interview, respondents are hearing the questions for the first time and
may not be attending carefully. Questions must be read in the proper order. Interviewers
shouldn’t decide the sequence in which questions are asked because there may be order
effects. They also shouldn’t decide which questions they will or won’t ask. Interviewers must ask
every question, subject to the respondent being qualified to answer.
Slide 6
As I mentioned in the lecture on different approaches to collecting survey data, the real value of
personal interviews is the option of probing further. Field workers must be trained to construct
adequate and proper probing questions. These questions are the verbal attempts that field
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workers make to motivate respondents to communicate their answers more fully. The goal of
probing questions is to encourage respondents to elaborate and clarify their initial answers.
Slide 7
Although not exhaustive of all probing techniques, this slide indicates four probing tactics.

In normal conversation, a person who’s asked a question will respond and then stop. If
the question asker remains silent, the answerer often feels pressured to elaborate on the
initial response.

Summarizing what the respondent said. An interviewer might say, “What I hear you
saying is…” then summarize what he or she heard, and then the respondent could either
acknowledge a properly understood answer or elaborate further.

Repeat the questioning in the hope that will signal the respondent that his or her answer
is incomplete.

Asking a neutral question in the hope the respondent would continue to elaborate on the
initial question in answering the neutral question.
Slide 8
Recording responses would seem to be a straightforward and obvious task, but it’s not.
Unfortunately, most people are reluctant to be audio or video recorded; as a result, the only way
to record responses during a personal interview is by writing them. It’s difficult for a single
interviewer to do all the things that facilitate the interviewing process—such as maintaining eye
contact and looking engaged—while recording as completely as possible the participant’s
responses. Thus, interviews of ‘experts’ are best conducted by two interviewers who ‘tag team’;
one person asks the questions and maintains the conversational aspects of the interview while
the other person records the responses.
Slide 9
One way to ease the recording process is to develop standard abbreviations for typical words
used in responses. Here’s a list of ten or so abbreviations.
Slide 10
In the same way it’s important to solicit the cooperation of interviewees, it’s also important to
terminate interviews properly. It may be necessary to re-interview a study participant about his
or her answers. If the interview is terminated badly, then it’s difficult or impossible to reapproach the study participant.
Slide 11
Someone must manage field workers, and that person is the field worker manager. This person
must select, train, supervise, and control field workers, which is a non-trivial task due to high
field worker turnover. Interviewing is a tedious task that requires reading and verbal skills
commensurate with a high school or college education. Unfortunately, in good economic
times—when other jobs are plentiful—people with that level of education often bore quickly of
field work and quit it. As a result, field work managers are continually trying to identify, train,
supervise, and control new field workers.
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Slide 12
Field workers must be monitored because they have an incentive to cheat. Typically, field
workers are paid a small base salary plus a commission per completed interview. To grow that
commission, they have an incentive to fake answers or falsify entire interviews. As a result,
most field service companies verify between 10 and 20% of interviews. That way, cheating
interviewers can be identified and their fake interviews can be deleted from the data set.
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