Questionnaire, a process of
Population Survey
The topics incorporated in the most important survey,
questionnaires
are vitally important for correct planning process of survey which are of two types -information collected for each individual
person and housing information. To fulfill the requirements of a simple, short and
OPTICAL MARK READER based
questionnaire, only the key topics are included after
a balanced consideration of several key factors. These include the priority
national needs, willingness and ability of the public to provide the
information adequately, international comparability of the information both
within the SAARC region and on a worldwide basis and human and financial
resources available for conducting the survey to collect the information.
Formulation and finalization of the survey questionnaire takes up greater part
of the survey planning time, and extends usually over two to three years. For
ensuring comparability of successive survey core topics are retained from
survey to survey and addition or deletion of other topics is done in moderation.
The questionnaire is finalized on the basis of several pretests in actual field
conditions and on the scrutiny and advice of the survey technical committee
that consists of academic experts, representatives of survey data users and
business community, legislative body of the ministries, local governments and
NGOs. whole topics enclosed in the survey include in addition to the core
topics of the short questionnaire, the topics in the sample survey
questionnaire, which are usually more detailed aimed at collecting flow type
data compared to the bench mark type data targeted by the main survey. By way
of supplementing the core topics of the short questionnaire, the sample survey
questionnaire of the recent Bangladesh
population survey have included topics of demographic,
economic and social importance on both the individual and housing modules. On
the individual module the following topics are integrated:
·
Fertility
·
Mortality
·
Migration
·
Physical
disability and impairment
·
Causes of
disability
·
Income of the
household head and main sources of income
·
Status and the
Institutional sector of employment
·
Place of work
On
the housing and household module the topics included in the sample survey had
been the following:
·
Rooms and floor
space
·
Water supply
system
·
Toilet and
sewerage facilities
·
Cooking
facilities
·
Lighting and type
of fuel and electricity
·
Rental and
housing costs of owner occupant housing
The
population survey is undoubtedly the single most extensive, complicated and
expensive statistical operation consisting of a complex series of interrelated
steps, that the country undertakes. A key feature of the recent Bangladesh population survey is preparation
and implementation of a comprehensive survey plan that fully reflects the
strategic objectives of the survey and identifies the diverse survey operations
to insure that they occur in their proper sequence and in a timely manner. Bangladesh survey plan divides survey
activities into the following six phases:
·
Preparatory
work
·
Record
·
Evaluation of
record quality
·
Data processing
·
Dissemination of
the results
·
Analysis of the
results
Operationally, the six
phases are not chronologically entirely separate or mutually exclusive but
overlapping and interactive. The preparatory phase consists of several diverse
activities and is the most difficult and time consuming usually taking around
60% of the total survey plan time. On the other hand it is the right
conceptualization through satisfactory implementation of the key activities of
the preparatory phase that makes or unmakes the survey.
Preparatory phase include:
·
Planning the
survey calendar or the survey time Figure,
·
Fixation of the
size of record area
·
Mapping work for
dividing the whole country into EAs with the help of survey cartography,
·
Preparation of
the survey questionnaire and its printing,
·
Plan of survey
record including recruitment and training of field enumerators and supervisors.
The other activities are no less important. These
include insuring proper legal basis for the survey, developing survey budget
and system of cost control, development of survey administration, plan for PEQC
and quality control, plan for survey publicity, data processing plan and plan
for survey publication and dissemination of survey data and information. The
survey calendar or time Figure indicates the sequence and estimated duration of
each component operations of the survey. The key date in the calendar is of
course the starting and closing dates of the general record of the population
on which hinge all other operations.
Survey calendar in Bangladesh is usually drawn in the form of a bar or the
Programme Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) chart, with separate bars of each
main operation.