The people who never answer because the survey is in English
A survey written only in English quietly leaves out the households a researcher most needs to hear from. Those people do not appear as missing data. They appear as a community with no opinion.
Why it is hard to measure
- Non-response is not spread evenly. It concentrates in exactly the communities that are already least visible in official statistics.
- Translating a form is not the same as being able to hold a conversation. A translated form still cannot ask a follow-up.
- A household can hold more than one language, and the language someone fills a form in is not always the one they think in.
- Bilingual interviewers have always solved this, and have always been the limit. You can only hire so many, and only for so many languages.
Questions only a conversation can ask
“In whichever language you are most comfortable with, tell me about the last time you needed help and could not get it.”
“Who else in your household would answer this differently from you, and why?”
Where SamSurveyor fits
Each recipient carries their own language, so a single survey can go out to a mixed-language population and speak to each person in their own. The follow-up questions happen in that language too, which is the part a translated form cannot do. The survey conversation runs today in English, Spanish, French, and German, and further languages can be added.
Hear this discussed
America's Survey Radio runs live. Tune in, then ask a question and Alex and Sam will take it on air.
Listen to Survey Radio