Using Paradata to Assess Respondent Burden and Interviewer Effects in HouseholdSurveys : Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Over the past decade, national statistical offices in low- and middle-income countries haveincreasingly transitioned to computer-assisted personal interviewing and computer-assisted telephone interviewingfor the implementation of household surveys. The byproducts of these types of data collection are survey paradata, whichcan unlock objective, module- and question-specific, actionable insights on respondent burden, survey costs, andinterviewer effects. This study does precisely that, using paradata generated by the Survey Solutions computer-assistedpersonal interviewing platform in recent national household surveys implemented by the national statistical offices inCambodia, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. Across countries, the average household interview, based on a socioeconomichousehold questionnaire, ranges from 82 to 120 minutes,while the average interview with an adult household member, based on a multi-topic individual questionnaire, takesbetween 13 to 25 minutes. Using a multilevel model that is estimated for each household and individual questionnairemodule, the paper shows that interviewer effects on module duration are significantly larger than the estimates fromhigh-income contexts. Food consumption, household roster, and non-farm enterprises consistently emerge among the topfive household questionnaire modules in terms of total variance in duration, with 5 to 50 percent of thevariability being attributable to interviewers. Similarly, labor, health, and land ownership appear among the top fiveindividual questionnaire modules in terms of total variance in duration, with 6 to 50 percent of the variability beingattributable to interviewers. These findings, particularly by module, point to where additional interviewer training,fieldwork supervision, and data quality monitoring may be needed in future surveys.