Welcome to Powerpoint slides for

Chapter 6

Field Procedures

Marketing Research Text and Cases by Rajendra Nargundkar

Slide 1

Design of Field Work

In India usually, field work is done physically by interviewing people at homes, offices or on the streets. The sampling method determines which of these places will yield a sample with the required characteristics. The sampling method also dictates if a random sample has to be chosen, and by what method. Cities / Centres
In actual practice, a sample of cities is usually chosen, or the clients instructions are followed (assuming a marketing research agency is doing the research on behalf of a corporate client).

For example, a client may want the four metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai to be covered, for strategic reasons.
If the client has not specified any cities, a national sample of cities may be chosen randomly or based on the research agencys experience of what would be the most representative cities for the target population. For example, if a cosmopolitan, multi-linguistic, welleducated population is required, the bigger cities may be chosen. If smaller, class A or class B towns are to be targeted, based on their population levels, a sample may be chosen from a listing of such towns according to census data or other sources.

Slide 2

Organising Field Work

Once the centres for field work are finalised, it has to be organised in each of these places.
The research agency may or may not have its own offices in each of the centres. If it has an office, a field supervisor from the office is sent a written "brief" and a copy of the questionnaire, and asked to recruit a field force and conduct a briefing for them. The written brief explains the necessary details like the client, the purpose of the study, and most importantly, the target population and how the sample is to be selected. Quotas

Most large consumer marketing research studies have quotas for demographics like age, income, sex of the respondent. This is because the output has to be analysed by these characteristics.
It is the job of the field supervisor to see that these quotas are achieved. In practice, these quotas are achieved by selecting residential areas whose resident profile is known, particularly the income profile. Most of the time, some extra interviews (than the sample size planned) are conducted to achieve the required quotas in terms of age, income, etc. This is because a few questionnaires may get rejected at a later stage, during tabulation or data entry, due to inconsistencies or incompleteness of answers.

Slide 3
Selection of Respondents The field supervisor actually leads the team of field workers on the field, and instructs them on how to select a household. For example, they may be told to select every third apartment in a block of 10 apartments. If the respondent found in a home is not of the required characteristics, or is not available, an alternative is given to the field worker. He may be permitted to try the neighbours door, for example, in such a case. The field worker has a tendency, usually, to overdo things by selecting too many similar respondents from the same block, street or area. The field supervisor has to control this tendency, because this may lead to an over-representation of one type of respondent, and under-representation of other types.

Slide 4 Control Procedures on the Field To ensure that a field worker is doing his job, the field supervisor can randomly go back to a few addresses and talk to the respondents to ensure that they were interviewed accurately. This is known as a call-back, and is one of the most commonly used control procedures on the field. The call-back serves the dual purpose of minimising cheating and also verifying the accuracy of the filled-in questions by re-asking some of the important questions. Field control procedures reduce nonsampling errors. Of course, there is a chance that the respondent may get irritated by having to answer the questions again. But an experienced field supervisor would handle the situation properly, by first explaining why he is calling back.

Slide 5 Briefing Before the field workers are sent on the field to do interviews, they are given a thorough briefing by the field supervisor. At this time, they generally go through a couple of mock interviews to ensure they understand the questions, the answer categories and the sequence. The field workers can also clarify any doubts they may have regarding the sample selection process, and the quotas for income, age or any other variables. What to do in case of contingencies is also discussed. A target for the day in terms of filled-in questionnaires is also set, for each field worker.

It is after the briefing session and mock interviews that the field force starts work on data collection.

Slide 6 Debriefing After returning from field work on Day One of the study in a given centre, there is usually a debriefing session where any problems in the field are discussed, and solutions found by the supervisor. It is also desirable to have a debriefing session at the end of the survey (last day) in a city, to summarise the main findings, and discuss any special comments or answers given by respondents in a city. These can be noted down and sent along with the filledin questionnaires to the research executive in-charge of the study, who may be at the organisations office in the city where the study originated. As mentioned earlier, field work is the backbone of primary data collection. It has to be carefully planned and supervised to ensure that errors are minimised, and accuracy levels maintained.