Experimental research in social science is characterized by rigorous quantitative studies which depend heavily on local teams working in the field to conduct multiple rounds of surveys, including a ‘baseline’ at the outset of a study; an ‘endline’ after the intervention; and, owing to the long duration of such interventions, there are usually several others to track changes in attributes of interest at different points, and to capture secondary outcomes of interest, among other things.
Thus, surveyors form the backbone of our work at Good Business Lab (GBL). Their ability to speak the local languages, create rapport with the study participants, ask questions with high emotional intelligence and sensitivity, and resolve in getting precise answers, are crucial to the successful completion of our projects and consequently the reliability of our research. And in March 2020, when we stopped field work due to the pandemic, the core part of our work was turned upside down as the 33 surveyors working with us had to start working from home.
When Bhasani Biswas from Odisha, who has been working as a surveyor for two years in Bangalore, went back home at the beginning of lockdown, she did not expect to stay back for so long. Bhasani lived with her parents and had her own personal room. There was good network connectivity to conduct surveys over the phone. As things were convenient, she felt good: “The fact that the same work we had been doing for all these years could be possible to do from home was amazing.” She describes it almost like an otherworldly experience that she “did not imagine I would experience.”
But for Jyothi G Math, our surveyor working in Bagalkot district in Karnataka, the change was more challenging. She raises three sons — including two of her brother’s sons who lost their mother — and lives with her family of nine members. Jyothi has been working as a surveyor since 2008, and she was used to the clear routine of doing house work before 9 am and after 5 pm in the evening and conducting surveys in the time between. The sudden absence of a workplace wrecked her routine and made it difficult to manage everything.
In the months of May to August when she conducted numerous surveys a day, she woke up at 5 am, finished cooking and her household duties by 9 am. She then went to her backyard with her mobile phone and notebook, and sat under a tree and got to work. It was the only way to stay away from the commotion the boys who were three, six and nine years old made. She took a break from work when it was time to cook and serve lunch and dinner. As surveys were conducted by phone, people asked to be called back late in the evening, and work extended up to 10 pm on some days.
She says that it was challenging for her because “women have to cook, manage the children, wash clothes, wash the dishes, do all that, and go to the market, and then work. For men, if they are working from home, that’s the only thing they do.” But Jyothi did not have complaints; she compared herself to the many people whose livelihoods were severely affected by the pandemic and considered herself lucky.
As Bhasani and Jyothi shared, conducting surveys on the phone is not easy; but for respondents, evading surveyors is.
All of GBL’s surveyors had to be re-trained to conduct phone surveys. “It was tough,” recalls Senior Field Associate Priota Paul who oversaw the process for several rounds of surveys. Training was conducted over conference calls as not everyone had access to the internet. It happened in batches of 3–4 people. Sessions were day-long with a few breaks. But the process was not smooth. “It was hard to say whether they understood or not; whether everyone was listening; whether anybody had zoned out or disconnected,” Paul shares. But, thankfully, surveys conducted during this time were not too long, and all the surveyors had enough experience conducting surveys. “There were errors in the beginning,” she revealed, “then we did target-oriented training and resolved it.”
In addition to the obvious challenges, phone surveys brought with them many unexpected challenges: disconnecting the call in the middle of the survey; family members of the respondents wanting to answer the questions; calls being rescheduled only to be rescheduled again; male family members of the female respondent picking fights with the male surveyor for calling her in the evenings.
“We then shifted to conducting surveys during working hours,” Priota said, referring to surveys for garment factory workers which happened after factories started functioning. But, as factory workers were not allowed to bring their mobile phones with them to the factory floor, we had to find a workaround: “We requested the help of HR officials in factories to provide a phone on which the workers could be surveyed.” This was tricky to implement because we relied on the factory officials to not only sanitize these phones every time they were used, but also to ensure that the surveys happened in private (with the worker alone in a closed room). Despite difficulties, this system was practiced and refined over the past year.
More than a year and four rounds of surveys later, Gurulingayya, a surveyor based in rural Karnataka, says that he, like most of his colleagues, still prefers conducting surveys in person. The reason: he feels that the data collected in person is much more accurate. “They can ask you for clarifications, you can explain the question clearly, and overall, they have more commitment to the survey process when it’s done in person,” he said. Another reason for his preference is his belief that seeing the surveyor’s face is important for the respondent to trust them — something he believes can never fully be achieved over the phone.
However, he noted that while the process was challenging, it forced him to learn quickly from experience and adapt his methods to get better results: “Now I know what to do, what not to do while conducting remote surveys, and how to improve accuracy by communicating more intelligently.”
Although our surveyors have worked from home for over a year, and now have a strong grasp of this medium, telephone surveys will not replace in-person surveys. As lockdowns from the second wave of COVID-19 have eased in India, we are getting ready to start in-person surveys for a few projects. But the pandemic has made some lasting impacts to the way we conduct research. It forced research organizations to rethink some of our static ways and cumbersome practices, and to innovate. Thanks to that, digital astuteness got added to the list of skills to train surveyors in; and we hope that the surveys of the future will be shorter, sharper and more contextual to suit the alternative media through which they will be administered. Through all this, we must not forget who did all most of the heavy lifting during the challenging times — the frontline workers of developmental research.
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