Data Collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia and The Strategic Marketing Research Agency were responsible for data collection. The whole territory of Serbia was divided into 18 districts according to the regional network of responsible institutions. In each district a team of people was selected - one supervisor for the district and the interviewers (whose number depended on the number of clusters in the region).

Training of supervisors was conducted in September 2005, before the pre-test. Towards the end of the supervisor training period, supervisors spent five days in practice interviewing and checking questionnaires and methodology in several places: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Kraljevo, Kragujevac, Valjevo and Nis.

The data was collected by 47 teams; each comprised of two interviewers, one driver and one editor/measurer. Each team in charge of data collection in Roma settlements included one or two members from the Roma women's network, and one professional interviewer. One supervisor was in charge of two or three teams. Fieldwork began in October 2005 and concluded in January 2006. Interviewing took place everyday throughout the fieldwork period, although interviewing teams were permitted to take one day off per week.

Interviews averaged 35 minutes for the household questionnaire , 30 minutes for the women's questionnaire, and 25 for the under five children's questionnaire (excluding the anthropometry).  Interviews were conducted primarily in Serbian, but they were translated into Albanian and Hungarian and these translated questionnaires were used when the respondent did not speak Serbian.

The overall field coordinators were: Natalija Biliskov, Dragana Djokovic Papic, Ljiljana Djordjevic and Tatjana Jovanov.

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Strategic Marketing Research Agency

The data was collected by 47 teams; each comprised of two interviewers, one driver and one editor/measurer. 18 supervisors were in charge for field-work supervision. The whole process was aditionaly monitored by 7 field editors. Each teams used a 4 wheel dirve vehicle to travel from cluster to cluster (and where necessary within cluster).

The role of the supervisor was to coordinate field data collection activities, including management of the field teams, supplies and equipment, finances, maps and listings, coordinate with local authorities concerning the survey plan and make arrangements for accomodation and travel.  Additionally, the field supervisor assigned the work to the interviewers, spot checked work, maintained field control documents, and sent completed questionnaires and progress reports to the central office.

The field editor was responsible for reviewing each questionnaire at the end of the day, checking for missed questions, skip errors, fields incorrectly completed, and checking for inconsistencies in the data.  The field editor also observed interviews and conducted review sessions with interviewers.

Responsibilities of the supervisors and field editors are described in the Instructions for Supervisors and Field Editors, together with the different field controls that were in place to control the quality of the fieldwork.

Field visits were also made by a team of central staff on a periodic basis during fieldwork.  The senior staff of UNICEF Belgrade also made 3 visits to field teams to provide support and to review progress.