The quality of fieldwork cannot be verified from the final report: a falsified interview looks exactly like a genuine one in the data set. The only effective safeguard is procedures built into the collection process and fixed in the contract before it starts.
Minimum requirements
- Audio recording of at least 100% of interviews, retained until the client accepts the work.
- Independent re-verification (call-back) of at least 15% of respondents against control questions.
- GPS and time stamps for the start and end of every in-person interview.
- Handover of the anonymised primary data set with the report, not only aggregated tables.
- The client's right to have recordings spot-checked by a third party.
These requirements do not materially raise the cost of the work, but they change the economics of bad-faith delivery: falsification becomes more expensive than collecting the data honestly.