English  Français

Language Mismatches among Respondents, Questionnaire, and Interview in National Family Health Survey, 2015-16

Md Juel Rana, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This study attempts to examine the factors affecting the language mismatches and use of translator in India. It also analyses the spatial association between language mismatches and use of translator. The data from the National Family Health Survey (2015-16) has been used. The findings show that the respondents whose mother tongues are Kashmiri, Sindhi, Urdu, Konkani, Nepali, and Khasi and the respondents who are living in the states such as Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, North-eastern states, parts of Maharashtra, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, have a higher level of language mismatches. In these states, the language mismatches are clustered and spatially correlated in both all areas and rural areas. The language mismatches are partly correlated with the use of translator. The findings indicate that half of the language mismatches between questionnaire and respondents can largely be reduced by appropriate management of translated questionnaire during the survey. The remaining mismatches can be reduced by translating the questionnaire into another 4 scheduled languages. Thus, the appropriate translation would decrease the bias in data collection generated due to on-the-spot translation and use of translator to maintain the data quality of large-scale surveys in India.

Keywords: Qualitative data/methods/approaches, Demographic and social surveys

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P16.