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International Journal of Public Opinion Research Advance Access originally published online on August 19, 2009
International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2009 21(3):271-292; doi:10.1093/ijpor/edp027
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved.

This article appears in the following International Journal of Public Opinion Research issue: Special issue on Comparative Survey Research [View the issue table of contents]

Measuring the Quality of Real-Time Telephone Survey Interpreters

Michael W. Link, Michael P. Battaglia, Larry Osborn, Martin R. Frankel and Ali H. Mokdad

Address correspondence to: Dr. Michael W. Link, The Nielsen Company, 145 Sanctuary Parkway, Suite 100, Alpharetta, GA 30004, USA. Michael.Link{at}Nielsen.com

Real-time interpretation during a survey can expand the number of languages in which surveys are offered. There are questions, however, about the quality of the interpretation process given that the interview is typically not pretranslated. A detailed assessment of the quality of this approach is provided using behavior-coding of interviews conducted with respondents who otherwise would have been finalized as "language barrier nonrespondents." Interviews were recorded and behavior-coded, quantifying for each question, (1) the accuracy of the interpretation of the question, (2) the accuracy of the interpreted response, (3) the degree of difficulty administering the question, (4) the number of times the question needed to be repeated, and (5) the number of times the interpreter and respondent engaged in dialogue that was not relayed to the interviewer. The approach produced favorable results, with less than a 4 percent error rate for interpretation of the questions and a 1.4 percent error rate in interpretation of survey responses.


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