In this lesson, we're going to go over the components that you need to consider in order to do a high quality data collector training. So everything that we're going to talk about in this section, there are some radar resources that are available for download off of our website. We also have a training event agenda. We recommend that if you use the generic one, you will need to adjust it to your specific needs. And we also have some assignments, some quizzes and some assessments that you can incorporate into your training. So in broad terms, the main components of a data collector training will be first of all to present the survey context and the methodology. You'll then want to go into the roles and responsibility of the survey staff. So everyone knows what other people are doing and what they themselves are doing. You want to consider human subject research ethics as what surveys are are is human subject research. You want some time to let your data collectors get familiar with CAPI as well as a more general tablet handling and tablet navigation. You'll then want to spend quite a bit of time doing a very detailed questionnaire review so that you can make sure that your data collectors really understand each question, how to ask it and why we're asking it. If you're planning to do your data collection in a language that is different than the language in which your training, you will want to make sure that you have someone come in and review the questionnaire in that language to make sure there's no errors in translation. If you're planning to include anthropology tree in your survey, you'll want to allow some time for your data collectors to practice and to learn how to do a proper anthropometry. And finally, definitely you will be needing to do some field practice ideally towards the end of the training, but with a little bit of time before the actual end of the training for you to incorporate lessons learned from the field practice. So the first section about the survey context and methodology will present essentially what you're doing and how you plan to do it. It should include both your survey objectives as well as a general timeline for your survey implementation. Typically, you'll want to provide some kind of background relative to the program or to the project that's involved as well as the other stakeholders that might be relevant for data collectors to know. You will also present in this section the survey design so that data collectors can kind of have an idea of the bigger picture of your survey is why it's taking place, why it's important that their work really is as good as it can be so that you can get that high quality data. You also want to use this time to make sure that you have some orientation to the geographic setting. Your data collectors might be coming from a different part of the country or for any other reason might not be familiar with your specific survey area so you want to allow some time for them to get familiar with it. Then typically, you'll go into the roles and responsibilities of all the survey staff and you'll want to make sure that that's from top to bottom or from bottom to top, but just very thorough all the way from the strength central office down to the data collectors. That ensures that everyone is aware of the hierarchy and of the communication channels between all of the different actors. It's also very helpful to clarify right at the very beginning the expectations. In order to avoid confusion and misunderstandings later in this section, it's good also to present some general rules of conduct that are expected from everyone throughout the whole hierarchy of the implementation staff. And again, it's very helpful for accountability. Coverage surveys tend to be rather large, there's a lot of moving pieces, there's a lot of different players and their roles are also by nature are very different. So ensuring that the communication between everyone is clarified and that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and what they're not supposed to be doing right from the beginning, avoids a lot of headaches later down the road. Coverage surveys are human subject research in meaning that we are conducting research on humans and as part of that, there are some ethical considerations that data collectors need to be made aware of and stay very focused on. So the kind of base level of that is that in order to contact the participants, data collectors will need to collect some personal information. So typically we're talking about names and phone numbers. The data collectors are responsible for making sure that this data remains private. Whether we're talking about them storing it on data collection devices such as tablets or phones or whatever electronic medium you're using in this survey or if you're using paper questionnaires or they're writing things and notebooks which ideally you might want to discourage them from doing. They need to make sure that this data remains private. Some of the questions and some of the modules in the questionnaire are a lot more sensitive than just names and phone numbers. Were thinking here particularly a family planning and childbirth questions. This is very sensitive information. And in order to make sure that this data is collected appropriately and is kept confidential, data collectors should first carry out the interview in privacy and make sure that they learn and are aware that delivering these questions with as much sensitivity as possible. It is very important. These are private topics that we're inviting participants to share with the research team and respecting them in that way is very important. Data collectors, once they have collected this data, they need to make sure that they do not disclose this information to anyone outside of the survey and they should additionally not discuss the content of interviews amongst themselves. So you should make sure to discourage them from kind of the very natural gossipy nature of discussing within the group. There is one small caveat to this which is if there have been some technical issues or issues that need to resolve, they should discuss this with their team leader and potentially that might lead to discussion with the group. But even in those cases any identifiers as to which participant specifically led to this issue arising should be kept private. Interviewers will need to obtain informed consent or in the case of teenagers who cannot give consent, they will need to give assent and you will also need to collect permission from their guardians to carry out the interview. This needs to be done in a respectful manner and during the training, it's very important to impart the importance of the informed consent process onto the data collectors to make sure that any consent gathered during your survey is willingly given and with all the information provided to the participants. You also want to allow plenty of time for your data collectors to get familiar with the copy system as well as with general tablet handling as well as tablet navigation. The radar questionnaire comes already programmed for ODK but if you're using a different data collection software, then you need to make sure that your data collectors know how to use that particular one. To do this, you'll typically want to make sure your data collectors have plenty of time to use their tablets. Practice doing the questionnaire to really be familiar with the technological aspect of this data collection. They specifically need to know how to navigate the questionnaire in the data collection software, how to save those questionnaires in order to give them to their team leaders for review. Ideally if this is possible, you would want to use the same tablets during training as the tablets that you will be using in the actual field in order to make sure that the data collectors aren't caught off guard or flustered because the operating software might be different or the tablet looks different. There are small differences between different brands, different types of software. So you need to make sure that whatever it is you're using, your data collectors have had a chance to practice extensively on prior to actually going into the field. The next thing you'll want to do is the detailed questionnaire review. So what we mean by that is literally just sitting with the paper version of the questionnaire and going through every single question. This is important so that the data collectors get familiar with the questions themselves as well as the background as to why those questions are actually being asked. It also gives you an opportunity to show data collectors how you'd like them to ask the questions. All this is important to make sure that data collectors have kind of the context and and more information in order to be able to ask appropriate probing questions when they're in the field. So really understanding the why behind the questions is helpful when they need to reformulate the questions or use different terminology in order to get the participants to understand the question as it's meant. Real playing is a great way to achieve all of these things. So in role playing during training, you'll typically set up interviewers one next to the other and one will play the role of an interviewer, the other will play the role of a participant. And just having your data collectors run through the questionnaire allows them to get familiar first of all with practicing reading the questions et cetera, but also gives them an opportunity to see how some people might answer the questions and learn how to manage those situations and prepare for those eventualities during training rather than during the actual data collection itself. If you plan to collect data in a language that is different than the language in which you are carrying out your training, we highly recommend that you use a language trainer and you have a section dedicated to language training. Some languages are not written, and in some cases you will be doing surveys in areas where multiple languages are spoken. Therefore translating the actual survey might not always be feasible, but you want to make sure that whatever on the fly translation your data collectors are doing really gets to the gist of the questions that the survey is actually asking. One of the ways to do this is to make sure that you have a language expert who can come in and train the interviewers, review keywords, especially medical terminology or more technical concepts that may not actually exist in in the language that you're looking to carry out your survey. And you want to make sure that first of all, everyone who will be administering the questionnaire uses the same terminology and to do that, you might want to do an actual written list of key terms to make sure everyone is translating in the same way. And there are also some specific cultural realities that might be different in in that area. Your language expert might be helpful to you to get that background information and make sure that you're carrying out your survey in a way that is culturally competent, which is important for respecting your local cultures of course. But it is also important in terms of generating welcoming feelings in the community, which then leads to higher response rates, more people agreeing to speak with you and just a more generally successful data collection exercise. If you choose to include anthropology Tree in your survey, you need to make sure that you're using certified and calibrated equipment. That's to make sure that all the measurements you're taking on this equipment are accurate. There are specific ways on how to measure and away Children. And data collectors need to be trained on exactly how to take those measurements. You'll want to make sure that they get an opportunity to practice before they go into the field. This is a process that we call standardization and that also allows you as you're making decisions about which data collectors to move forward with for your actual data collection. You can use their accuracy as one of the metrics. It's a it's quite a lengthy activities so you'll want to make sure to allow enough time to do it properly so at least half a day in some cases more depending on the size of your data collector pool. If you choose to include anthropology tree in your survey, you need to make sure that you're using certified and calibrated equipment. That's to make sure that all the measurements you're taking on this equipment are accurate. There are specific ways on how to measure. And away Children. And data collectors need to be trained on exactly how to take those measurements. You'll want to make sure that they get an opportunity to practice before they go into the field. This is a process that we call standardization and that also allows you as you're making decisions about which data collectors to move forward with for your actual data collection. You can use their accuracy as one of the metrics. It's a, it's quite a lengthy activities so you'll want to make sure to allow enough time to do it properly. So at least half a day in some cases more depending on the size of your data collector pool. And finally, a very important piece that will always be necessary is the field practice. So even if your data collectors have already collected data and other surveys and they have previous experience, field practice is always necessary. There are always going to be slight differences between surveys that maybe between areas in which the surveys are conducted etcetera that can't be caught without field practice. Field practice can help you catch some unforeseen issues before you actually go to the field and then you can correct them before. It's essentially too late. Field practice is best done in an area that is very similar to where the survey will take place, but isn't actually where you plan to do that. So maybe a neighboring village or a neighboring a where you won't be actually collecting data is an ideal choice. It's also a good time to identify individuals who have potential to be team leaders by the way that they exhibit or don't exhibit leadership qualities in the field. There are some things that some people who are excellent in the classroom might turn out to not have the skills necessary for either data collection in the field itself or for being team leaders and vice versa. Some people who might not have excelled in the classroom might exhibit some excellent interpersonal skills or some excellent managing or leadership skills and none of this, it's impossible to really get a sense of all of this without going to the field. So field practice is essential.
