Representative Household Survey

The representative household survey⁷⁰ was conducted using a survey method substantially similar to that of the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Surveys (Grosh and Munoz, 1996). The sample frame was all households in rural subdistricts of Ban Phai and Phon districts, i.e. all households outside the municipal areas of Ban Phai and Phon districts. Sampling of villages was conducted prior to the commencement of fieldwork (see below), and each village was visited twice. On the first visit to each village, a Community Questionnaire was completed, with the village leader or their nominee as the respondent. The Community Questionnaire was designed to engage the interest and support of community leaders, as well as collecting information about the community’s access to education, health, transport and communication, and the presence (or absence) of certain rural institutions. On the second visit to each village, price data was collected for a range of food and non-food items sold in the village.

Each household included in the sample was visited twice. The first visit collected data on who lived there, their characteristics, what they did for income, migration data, health data, and agricultural data. The second visit was conducted approximately fourteen days after the first visit. This was done to ensure bounded recall for respondents, which was seen as necessary in order to ensure the validity of the sample data (Deaton, 1997; Grosh and Munoz, 1996).

The household second visit questionnaire primarily focused on assessing the household’s expenditure since the first visit, gift giving and receiving, remittances from (urban) family members, production, and level of wealth. The data collected

70 In order to avoid any problems with officials or village leaders who might want to influence the data collected in order for their village or sub-district to compare favourably to others, the survey was identified to authorities as the “Ban Phai and Phon Districts Household Survey 2003”, i.e.

HIV/AIDS was not mentioned in its title.

on the two household questionnaires can be used to determine the household’s level of consumption, nutrition, degree of food security, and ways in which it organises its income earning activities. They also collected data about

‘observable’ characteristics of the household such as what durable goods they possess, household size and composition, and so on. The second visit questionnaire also included two individual questionnaires, which were conducted with one randomly selected adult male and one randomly selected adult female from each household. These individual surveys collected information about the support networks of the household, the individual’s hopes, their access to information, discrimination, and attitudes to ‘at-risk’ groups in the community.

All questions used in the representative household survey, with the exception of the individual questionnaires, were based extensively on modules used in previous World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey questionnaires (Ainsworth and van der Gaag, 1988; Grootaert, 1986; Grosh and Munoz, 1996; Oliver, 1997).

All questionnaires were first composed in English, and then translated into Thai by Thai undergraduate students at the University of Waikato. Translations were confirmed during discussions with senior Thai members of the research team, and further during training of the survey teams.⁷¹ Despite this, one question in the household first visit questionnaire retained some ambiguity and results were discarded.⁷² Also, the migration section of the household first visit questionnaire was significantly re-worded between the second and third rounds of data collection in order to better capture all migration movements involving current household members, particularly seasonal migration.

The representative household survey was conducted in two districts (Ban Phai and Phon) in southern Khon Kaen province from June to October 2003. Ban Phai district was selected because of the presence of the Community-Based Integrated Rural Development centre. Phon district was selected randomly from the eleven

71 This ‘triangular translation’ was necessary to ensure that the Thai questionnaire asked identical questions to the English version of the questionnaire.

72 This question considered whether students had completed the last (previous) year of school (as opposed to being withdrawn from school for various reasons). Unfortunately the question was translated as “has this person completed the final year of school” and this error was not discovered until surveying had been completed in several villages.

remaining districts in southern Khon Kaen province.⁷³ Phon proved to be an excellent choice because it was in many ways similar to Ban Phai district. Both districts lie on the main north-eastern road and rail routes, but Phon district lies significantly further from the provincial centre and does not have an extensive rural development centre.

Thai communities are reasonably well-organised administratively – individuals

‘belong’ to households, households ‘belong’ to villages, villages ‘belong’ to sub-districts, and so on.⁷⁴ This is a fortuitous situation for defining a research sample – much of the enumeration work (for instance, the enumeration of villages in each sub-district) has already been done by government authorities such as the Ministry of Interior. All non-municipal sub-districts in both districts (ten in Ban Phai, and twelve in Phon) were included in the sampling frame. Three villages were selected for the sample from each sub-district, using weighted random sampling. The village sizes (in terms of number of households) from the Basic Minimum Needs Survey 2002 undertaken by the Ministry of Interior were used to provide a priori weights for sampling. This provided a village sample of 66 villages, which when weighted appropriately (as detailed in Deaton (1997)), is a representative sample of the non-municipal areas of the two districts. The approximate geographical locations of the 66 sampled villages are shown in Figure 4.2. As can be seen they are relatively dispersed geographically, with some villages located very close to the municipal areas, and others very far away – this appears to provide a geographically representative mix that includes households with workers in urban occupations as well as more remote rural households.

73 The twelve districts in southern Khon Kaen province are Phra Yun, Mancha Khiri, Ban Haet, Khok Pho Chai, Chonnabot, Ban Phai, Non Sila, Puai Noi, Waeng Yai, Waeng Noi, Phon, Nong Song Hong.

74 The problems of social organisation identified by Foster (1984) do not adversely affect this research since neither village organisation nor the intrarelationships within the village are considered in any detail.

Figure 4.2: Approximate location of sample villages

The structure of the research team used for data collection is presented graphically in Figure 4.3. The research was co-ordinated by Michael Cameron, with assistance from Chupasiri Apinundecha, a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Public Health at Khon Kaen University. Significant logistical and technical assistance was provided by the Mekong Institute, with additional assistance provided by the Population and Community Development Association’s CBIRD Ban Phai Centre.

Three teams of interviewers were recruited locally and trained in data collection methods and interview technique. Recruitment of local interviewers ensured that interpretations and language used for the survey were consistent with those in use in the survey area. Training was completed over a five-day period prior to data collection. Each survey team consisted of four members with specific roles and responsibilities, similar to those recommended by the World Bank for the Living Standards Measurement Survey (Grosh and Munoz, 1996). Each survey team had two interviewers, one anthropometrist, and one supervisor. The interviewers interviewed the household members, the anthropometrist weighed and measured

household members and provided additional assistance to the interviewers, and the supervisor co-ordinated the activities of the survey team, provided initial quality control, and liaised with local authorities, including conducting the Community Questionnaire interview with the village leader.

Figure 4.3: The research team for the Ban Phai and Phon Districts Household Survey 2003

The data collection period was separated into four rounds of four weeks each, as illustrated in Table 4.1. The 66 villages were randomly distributed between the first three rounds with 24 villages visited in each of the first two rounds, and 18 villages visited in the third round. In the fourth round, twelve villages were re-surveyed using only the household questionnaires (and visiting the same households), in order to provide data for quality control purposes. In each four-week survey round, each village was visited twice, two four-weeks apart.

Table 4.1: Ban Phai and Phon Districts Household Survey 2003 timeline

Round Dates Teams involved No. of Villages

1 28 June – 25 July A, B, C, D 24

2 26 July – 22 August A, B, C, D 24 3 23 August – 20 September A, B, C 18 4 21 September – 17 October A, B 12

A scheduled work plan for each survey round can be found in Appendix I. Each week the survey teams worked from Saturday to Thursday, with each survey team visiting one village for two consecutive days. Survey teams began by meeting in the morning at the CBIRD Centre near Ban Phai to ensure that all survey team members were present and to provide an opportunity to mitigate any absenteeism problems. From there, survey teams travelled to the survey villages by motorcycle or private car. At the end of each day the research co-ordinator collated all completed forms and checked that they were complete and internally consistent. If there were any problems, the survey team supervisor was sent back to the village to confirm details or complete any incomplete questions or sections. Friday was scheduled as a rest day each week.

In each village, all households (as defined in Section 2.2.1) were enumerated using the procedures recommended by the World Bank (Grosh and Munoz, 1996).

Interview teams contracted a guide who led them around the village while they drew a simple map of the village and recorded the names of the head of each household. After enumeration was completed, a sample of ten households was selected by random sampling by the supervisor of the survey team. Sample selection used a simple method that applied a random starting point and evenly spaced the selected households through the sample. If a household could not be interviewed for whatever reason, an alternative (reserve) household was selected – this was typically the household immediately following the omitted household on the enumeration listing. This method was taught to supervisors during interviewer training. The location of each household was recorded on the village map, to assist with finding the household again on the second visit (or during the fourth round, if necessary). This provided an overall sample of 660 households which, when appropriately weighted, is representative of the two districts surveyed.

Sample selection for the respondents from each household (one male, one female) to the individual section of the survey was conducted by the research co-ordinator before the second visit to the household. Respondents for each gender were randomly selected from the available respondents of each gender aged 18 or over.

These responses were weighted to take account of the differential selection probabilities for individuals from households of different sizes – the number of eligible males or females in the household provided the weighting for responses to the individual section of the survey.⁷⁵

Participation in the survey was voluntary, but the refusal rate was extremely low (see below). Individual questionnaire and household questionnaire respondents were given packets of rice crisps (from the Population and Community Development Association’s Cabbages & Condoms brand) as a gift for participating in the study. The research was conducted in accordance with the University of Waikato Human Research Ethics Regulations 2000, and was approved by the Ethics Committee of Waikato Management School. Informed consent was obtained verbally from all respondents to the household questionnaires prior to the interview, and separately for all respondents to the individual sections of the household questionnaires. This was confirmed with written consent after each interview.

Collaboration was encouraged in answering questions for the community and household questionnaires, but for the individual section each respondent was separated from their peers or other household members. This, when combined with the rapport established by the interviewers during their first visit to the household, helped to ensure respondents felt free to answer without being subjected to peer pressure or community norms or expectations.

The survey resulted in 660 household responses, and 1226 individual questionnaire responses. The numbers of reserve households and individuals included in the sample and the reasons for their use are summarised in Table 4.2.

75 For an example of a survey which used a similar sample selection and weighting process, see Johnson et al. (1994).

Of the household sample, 55 households (or 8.3 per cent of the sample) were reserves. Reserves were typically used because all members of the original household were absent at the time of the interview, or because of sampling error.

Sampling errors arose where the survey team supervisors made simple calculation errors in the starting point, or the interval between households to be selected in the household listing. These sample errors were not systematic and therefore should not affect the whether the sample as a whole is representative of the surveyed districts. Of the individual surveys, 46 responses (or 3.8 per cent) were by reserve respondents, with 19 individuals unable to be replaced by suitable reserves (due to there being no other adult of the same gender in the household). Again reserves were typically used when the selected respondent was absent at the time of the interview, or because of interviewer error. Here interviewer error generally arose where the interviewer did not make every reasonable effort to contact the selected respondent and instead used a reserve respondent.

Table 4.2: Use of reserves in the representative household survey

Number Proportion

Reserves unable to be used

Total 19 100.0%

Reason:

Absent at the time of the interview 18 94.7%

Interviewer error 0 0.0%

Refusals 1 5.3%

Quality control was conducted by the researcher and the survey team supervisors.

Supervisors checked each questionnaire and signed it to confirm that it was

complete and internally consistent. At the end of each day all questionnaires were collected and checked by the researcher. On the second day in each village, all questionnaires with omitted or inconsistent responses from the first day were returned to interviewers to check. Questionnaires with omitted or inconsistent responses from the second day were checked at the end of that day by the team supervisor. This iterative work between the researcher, research team supervisors and interview teams was important in ensuring effective quality control.