On February 2021, the LSMS team, together with the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), organized the “Training of Trainers course on the design and implementation of telephone surveys” to help countries conduct high-quality telephone surveys during the current pandemic as well as afterwards, as National Statistical Offices are increasingly adapting to new modes of data collection.
This course was made up of two parts: a self-study component with video-assisted learning on modules that covered sampling, questionnaire design, and data collection, and a remote training component delivered on videoconference by lecturers from the Mannheim Business School, the University of Maryland and Michigan State University.
Target participants were staff from national survey organizations in member countries of the Network for the Coordination of Statistical Training in Asia and the Pacific and Africa.
By the end of the course, attendees developed an improved practical knowledge to conduct high-quality telephone surveys, as well as the capacity to train statisticians in order to ensure high-quality interviews in their countries of origin.
More training sessions will be conducted in the next months to target a total of 120 trainers from Regional Statistical Training Centers and United Nations Regional Commissions and Training Institutes, with participants from Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia, who will in turn train staff from their National Statistical Offices.