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YAC Data Kit

YAC Interview Kit

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Quota control

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YAC Interview Manager

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YAC Text Recoder

YAC Data-o-Mat

Quota control
In YAC Interviewer Kit applications we have implemented quota control that limits the number of interviews in predefined groups of respondents. This solution is especially useful in cases when the cost of a single interview (be it the cost of connections, incentives, as well as data processing and analysis) is too high to let any number of respondents finish such interviews.

By default, such control is turned off in a survey, so interviews are carried out as long as a survey is available to respondents. If the cost of an interview is low or the number of potential respondents is limited (for instance, by allowing only invited respondents to participate or by displaying the link to the survey to groups of respondents of a limited size), the default behavior is quite acceptable.

However, it should be obvious that when the cost of a single interview goes up, or if we are carrying out many interviews (in tens of thousands, for instance, and the total cost of the survey starts to go up), we need to have some form of automatic control on the number of finished interviews.

YAC Interview Kit implements quota control by adding special instructions to the scripting language. Then, thanks to the software, we get the following functionality:
  • Interviews may be closed automatically when too many respondents from a given group try to take part in a survey. Such respondents are shown an internet page with an appropriate message (for instance, with a "thank you" note for wanting to take part in a survey).
  • The administrator can control the execution of the survey in these predefined groups of respondents. In turn, this allows:
    • Sending out more invitations if there is a chance that the quota limit will not be reached in one or more groups.
    • Better estimation of the time needed to finish a survey.
  • The interview's status is written together with exported data. Thus, an analyst may check when and in which groups respondents were turned down (how many there were, what were the people's characteristics, etc.).
  • Thanks to the above analysis, we can try to better target invitations in upcoming surveys based on similar respondent groups.
  • Eliminate the need of data weighting (or, at least, minimize the influence of the weight on results), as long as the structure defined by quota limits reflects the structure of the surveyed population.
  • In surveys with registered points in a loyalty program, interviews closed because of quota limits (and not by the respondents) are included in the total points collected by a respondent. However, the survey administrator may decided that such interviews will results in less points then "full" interviews, finished in a standard way.
Quota instructions in the questionnaire scripts allow for quota control on three levels:
  • The total number of interviews carried out.
  • The number of interviews in a group defined by a response or responses to a single question (such as sex, age ranges, etc.).
  • The number of interviews in groups defined by combined responses to several questions (such as in the "cells" of a sex by age groups crosstab).
The program controls all limits in predefined groups. If at least one of these limits is exceeded, the interview is stopped.

The internet page that is then shown is the default page for all surveys. However, you can define survey specific pages that describe the situation to the respondent in more detail (why the interview was interrupted, how many points are allocated for such interviews, etc.).

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