On average each interviewer conducted six interviews per day. This was more practicable in the urban
areas, with short travelling distances between the EAs. In rural areas this was only possible when the
team had overnighted in close proximity to the EAs. 12 interviews were conducted in each EA.
Table 2:
Sample allocation of enumerator areas by province
12 interviews were conducted in each Enumerator Area (EA)
Province
Urban
Rural
Manicaland
2
10
Midlands
3
9
Masvingo
1
11
Mashonaland Central
1
10
Harare
10
0
Mashonaland East
1
8
Mashonaland West
2
7
Matebeleland North
1
8
Matebeleland South
1
8
Bulawayo
7
0
Total
29
71
Total
12
12
12
11
10
9
9
9
9
7
100
The interviewers submitted the completed questionnaires to a supervisor after conducting a first round
of inter-interviewer cross-checks for completeness. The supervisors checked all the administered
questionnaires for completeness and validity of responses. Supervisors conducted one back-check per
EA. This was, however, in the words of MPOI ‘with considerable difficulty since some respondents felt
this violated the principle of confidentiality’. There were regular end-of-day and end-of-EA debriefing
sessions to help interviewers handle conditions on the ground. MPOI’s principal researcher monitored
the research teams on randomly selected areas to confirm survey protocols on walk patterns, and
household and respondent selection procedure. Monitoring of fieldwork was synchronized together
with the cross-checking of the completed questionnaires. For quality control, MPOI’s principal
researcher visited the three teams in the field. Fieldwork was completed in mid-December 2010. MPOI
reported that no major political challenges had been experienced in the course of fieldwork
implementation (also see section on Political context).
Data processing
MPOI undertook data processing, working on the requests from Freedom House and the pollster. MPOI
furthermore undertook the coding of open-ended questions. The data sets and select statistical
applications were made available by MPOI in the period from mid-January to mid-February 2011.
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