Be wary of those who ask. A randomized experiment on the size and determinants of enumerator effects
During survey data collection, respondents’ answers may be influenced by the behavior and characteristics of the enumerator, the so-called enumerator effect. Using a large-scale experiment in Uganda in which the study randomly pairs enumerators and respondents, the study explores for which types of questions the enumerator effect may exist. It is found that the enumerator effect is minimal in many questions, but is large for political preference questions, for which it can account for over 30 percent of the variation in responses.