ASSESSING THE VALIDITY OF INFORMANT RECALL - RESULTS OF A TIME USE PILOT-STUDY IN PERIURBAN EGYPT

This article presents the results of a time use pilot study comparing informant recall with direct observation in a peri-urban Egyptian vill age. The operations research was conducted to determine whether inform ant recall could substitute for direct observation as a method to elic it accurate information on individuals' daily patterns of time allocat ion in this village. Trained fieldworkers, using two structured protoc ols (one for informant recall and the other for direct observation), c ollected Lime use data on 40 study participants as they performed rout ine tasks at home and away from home. Data were stratified by househol d subsistence type (agricultural versus non-agricultural) and recall e rrors were calculated. Results of the analysis indicated that the esti mated recall error of 56% was unacceptable and that an observational p rotocol would generate more accurate time use data in our study sire. We, therefore, modified the pilot study's observational protocol for i mplementation in the final study, We found this process and its result s very useful in weighing our time allocation research options and rec ommend that others follow a similar research strategy when deciding on time allocation methods for implementation in developing countries.