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Quality assessment

Successful surveys largely depend on the quality of the implementation process. Therefore, assessing the quality of a survey requires not only an assessment of the consistency of the data themselves and of their compatibility with data from other sources, but also a detailed assessment of all phases of the survey, from design to data entry and editing. Such an assessment requires comprehensive metadata, unfortunately rarely available.

Statistics Canada's Quality Guidelines


In its "Quality Guidelines," Statistics Canada presents checklists of issues related to the quality of survey planning, design and analysis. (Quality Guidelines, Third Edition - October 1998).

IHSN Survey Quality Assessment Framework


The IHSN is developing a Survey Quality Assessment Framework (SQAF), intended for survey managers in developing countries. The SQAF provides a commented checklist of key decisions to be made by survey managers, and of metadata to be generated, at each step of the life cycle of a survey. The SQAF is intended to be used by survey managers during survey implementation, and as a tool for assessing the quality of a survey after its completion.

A draft document has been produced and is being reviewed. This draft will be disseminated soon for comments by users.

European Self Assessment Checklist for Survey Managers


"DESAP is the generic checklist for a systematic quality assessment of surveys in the European Statistical System (ESS). It has been designed as a tool for survey managers and should support them in assessing the quality of their statistics and considering improvement measures.

The DESAP Checklist has been designed in order to fulfill a number of quite different functions. First of all it is an assessment tool: It should be used to assess the overall quality of a survey and to compile a quality profile covering the ESS quality components. But this is not all. The checklist also provides guidance in the consideration of improvement measures and could facilitate a basic appraisal of the risk of potential quality problems." (EUROSTAT)

The DESAP checklist is a detailed 64-page-long document. A condensed version is also available.

Reports on the use of DESAP are published by the Federal Statistics Office of Germany and by the National Statistical Institute of Spain.