Telephone Interviewing
NSRC’S 15-POINT QUALITY ASSURANCE PROCESS
FOR TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS
Quality data collection is the cornerstone for generating accurate and reliable
information. NSRC provides a supervised, structured and controlled environment
for telephone interviewing. This environment incorporates the advantages
of three major developments in the evolution of telephone interviewing: a
centralized interviewing facility, rigorous monitoring of interviews by experienced
project managers and CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) technology.
Quality is both an attitude and a set of specific rules and procedures. Our
stringent 15-point quality assurance process includes:
TRAINING
- Comprehensive training of interviewers prior to beginning an assignment
that
includes:
- General training regarding interviewing techniques: reading
questions as worded, probing techniques, importance of standardization
- Questionnaire-specific training
MONITORING
- Interview monitoring by project managers
with evaluation and immediate feedback to
interviewers on the following aspects of the interview:
- Quality of introduction
- Effectiveness of probing techniques for open-ended questions
- Elimination of comments that might reinforce certain response
patterns or
otherwise bias the results
- Degree of standardization achieved
- Remote monitoring capabilities allowing clients to monitor interviews
from the convenience of their office.
PROGRAMMING
- On-line collection, analysis and exception reporting of the time
required for every completed interview.
- Instantaneous rejection of responses
to closed-ended questions that are outside a permissible range.
- Consistency checks among answers to logically related questions; the interviewer
is given a message to probe and further explore responses that appear contradictory.
- "Backward navigation" to correct any data errors that are uncovered
after a response has been entered. This feature is also useful for updating
responses when respondents wish to change an answer. It is implemented
on all projects, including surveys involving complex branching logic.
- Rotating questions (as appropriate) to minimize bias due to placement
of questions on the survey.
- Programming of complex skip pattern logic to ensure correct branching
on every questionnaire.
SAMPLING
- Formal call-back procedures to minimize the bias
associated with interviewing easy to reach respondents.
- On-line demographic tabulations to ensure subsections
of the sample are properly represented.
- Complete logs of every call attempted and the result
of each attempt.
- Verifying a percentage of all completed interviews.
SECURITY
- Comprehensive backup procedures to minimize loss
of information due to computer or power failures.
- Security procedures such as password protected
access by individual project.
