Enumerator training advice and best practices?

Hello, survey community!

After 4 years in Senegal running an RCT with IPA, I am now supporting a US-based survey organization that is looking to improve its enumerator training practices and wants to learn from what is already being done in the survey world.

Since the documentation on training practices is much poorer than technical support, I am asking for you to share your thoughts, experiences, and amazing solutions. I'm also hoping that this question can encourage more learning from the community about training best practices that are out there somewhere! Training our enumerators is arguably the most important, but often most neglected, piece of the quality data puzzle.

THE SITUATION: The organization works with about a dozen developing countries to conduct large-scale semi-annual household surveys (quantitative) with local partners. The core questionnaire remains the same throughout rounds, with some minor revisions and a handful of new questions. There is a high level of language diversity in the countries in which they work. In each country, as well as between countries, different languages are often used in training, written training and reference materials, the questionnaire itself, and the field interviews. There is a high level of cultural diversity and varying contexts across and within countries. There is a great span of formal education levels of field agents. A few years ago, HQ prepared a substantial set of training materials, namely PowerPoint presentations, in order to standardize content and to lessen the training prep time burden in country partners.

THE PROBLEM: As is common, the main challenges are the TIME and the QUALITY of the training; there is never enough time, and quality could always be higher. Training preparation takes time, due to translation issues (not all languages are written ones) and to making updates in training materials based on the most recent questionnaire updates. The training itself is facilitated by a mix of HQ and in-country coordination and technical staff, individuals who are experienced in the subject but are not trained facilitators. As such, they may be less effective, or at least less efficient, than professional facilitators at teaching the content to enumerators in the time allotted.

THE MAIN QUESTIONS: We are looking to learn from your experiences, both good and bad, around the following four questions:

  1. What have you found to be efficient methods for updating the language and content of training materials for subsequent rounds and new countries? (automated? Semi-automated? Better structured?)

  2. What are the best ways to deal with multilingual users in trainings? (Language group break-offs? Codify unwritten languages? Audio recordings?)

  3. What strategies have you used to deal with a limited, and seemingly insufficient, number of in-person training hours? (Pre- or post-training activities? E-learning? Follow-ups?)

  4. How do you try to build "communities of practice" for capacity development, allowing and encouraging your team members to communicate their own questions and experiences to benefit others?

Thank you in advance for all of your help!
And if you'd be open to sharing even more, let me know and I'll follow up with you?

Cheers,
Sarah

Hi Sarah,

I know this is late in coming, but you might want to look at the
training guides at https://opendatakit.org/help/training-guides/ and
reach out individually to the folks who wrote those.

Yaw

ยทยทยท On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 12:29 PM, wrote: > Hello, survey community! > > After 4 years in Senegal running an RCT with IPA, I am now supporting a US-based survey organization that is looking to improve its enumerator training practices and wants to learn from what is already being done in the survey world. > > Since the documentation on training practices is much poorer than technical support, I am asking for you to share your thoughts, experiences, and amazing solutions. I'm also hoping that this question can encourage more learning from the community about training best practices that are out there somewhere! Training our enumerators is arguably the most important, but often most neglected, piece of the quality data puzzle. > > THE SITUATION: The organization works with about a dozen developing countries to conduct large-scale semi-annual household surveys (quantitative) with local partners. The core questionnaire remains the same throughout rounds, with some minor revisions and a handful of new questions. There is a high level of language diversity in the countries in which they work. In each country, as well as between countries, different languages are often used in training, written training and reference materials, the questionnaire itself, and the field interviews. There is a high level of cultural diversity and varying contexts across and within countries. There is a great span of formal education levels of field agents. A few years ago, HQ prepared a substantial set of training materials, namely PowerPoint presentations, in order to standardize content and to lessen the training prep time burden in country partners. > > THE PROBLEM: As is common, the main challenges are the TIME and the QUALITY of the training; there is never enough time, and quality could always be higher. Training preparation takes time, due to translation issues (not all languages are written ones) and to making updates in training materials based on the most recent questionnaire updates. The training itself is facilitated by a mix of HQ and in-country coordination and technical staff, individuals who are experienced in the subject but are not trained facilitators. As such, they may be less effective, or at least less efficient, than professional facilitators at teaching the content to enumerators in the time allotted. > > THE MAIN QUESTIONS: We are looking to learn from your experiences, both good and bad, around the following four questions: > > 1. What have you found to be efficient methods for updating the language and content of training materials for subsequent rounds and new countries? (automated? Semi-automated? Better structured?) > > 2. What are the best ways to deal with multilingual users in trainings? (Language group break-offs? Codify unwritten languages? Audio recordings?) > > 3. What strategies have you used to deal with a limited, and seemingly insufficient, number of in-person training hours? (Pre- or post-training activities? E-learning? Follow-ups?) > > 4. How do you try to build "communities of practice" for capacity development, allowing and encouraging your team members to communicate their own questions and experiences to benefit others? > > > Thank you in advance for all of your help! > And if you'd be open to sharing even more, let me know and I'll follow up with you? > > Cheers, > Sarah > > -- > -- > Post: opendatakit@googlegroups.com > Unsubscribe: opendatakit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com > Options: http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit?hl=en > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ODK Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to opendatakit+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.