Blogs

Sangeeta Khimbanjar - Assistant Research Officer at HERD shares how she and her team engages  to maintain quality in qualitative research studies through effective data management practices.

Data management and documentation is a backbone for any research. Good documentation provides context to the data, tracks its provenance and makes it easier to find and use it in a longer term. Henceforth, data management and documentation should be done systematically to minimise the errors and misplacement of the data.

In order to trace the record of the entire data for various projects at HERD, we prepare a log sheet. Qualitative data (transcriptions, recording, consent forms) are managed in a systematic way so that it can be found and understood whenever needed.

For the qualitative data management, we follow a standard recruitment process at HERD. Our quality output is a loyal echo of our recruitment process. To maintain our quality standards, we have formulated stringent recruitment process, where applicants go through a round of performance tests as we assess them on their writing skills, speed and proficiency of language. Getting through a round of tests is just the beginning, as especially for the newly recruited translators, we closely monitor them at least for a week.

After hiring the translators, orientation session is organised by the project team. We use a total of 3 forms for translation. The first form is the 'Daily Work Activities Sheet' in which the translators write down their incoming and outgoing time. They also sign on it as evidence. The second form 'Translation Progress Sheet', maintains record regarding what type of qualitative data is being translated and the number of words translated per day. Cross verification is done by opening the file created by the translators in the computer and the Microsoft Word count is also checked. The progress sheet is signed by the verifier after the verification. The third form is the Log Sheet for keeping record of translated transcription. A separate log sheet has been made in Microsoft Excel before distributing the copies to the translators. It contains details such as to whom transcription copies belonging to specific districts has been assigned as well as the time expected to complete that assignment.

The details of the transcribers are also maintained to distinguish the translators during data analysis. The log sheet is to be filled by the supervisor on a daily basis which makes it easier to inform the research team about the progress of translation. The supervisor is responsible for monitoring the working hours of the translator. Regular interactions take place between the translator and the research team to identify the problems, mitigate those problems effectively and document the lessons learnt.

Though many issues and challenges arouse, with an efficient system in place – we will be on track with efficient and effective data management and documentation.