An App to Facilitate Real Time Reporting of Interviewer Activities: Revelations and Outcomes of a Beta Test
Catherine Haggerty
The University of Chicago
Kymn Kochanek
NORC
Sjoblom Micah
NORC
How do interviewers spend their time? How can we maximize interviewers' time spent engaged in "productive" activities? Most survey projects ask interviewers to report time spent engaged in broad activities such as training, interviewing and locating. Interviewer time is typically reported once a week in an electronic timecard that requires the interviewer to report gross rather than granular details about their activities. Survey staff examine time reported in combination with call record entries and analysis of outcome codes which occasionally raises red flags unnecessarily, or more often, fails to reveal important details about activities in the field. We sometimes observe what appears to be little or no work being accomplished but when quizzed interviewers explain in rich detail exhaustive efforts to accomplish their tasks. NORC recently identified and programmed a mobile device App that allowed interviewers to report their activities in real time and in richer detail. We conducted a proof of concept test to determine if interviewers would successfully utilize the App to record granular field activity and to determine if the App was suitable for our tracking purpose.