Where Things Stand: Afghanistan 2010 - Note on Methodology

Dec. 6, 2010 -- This survey was conducted for ABC News, the BBC, ARD and The Washington Post by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul, a subsidiary of D3 Systems Inc. of Vienna, Va. Interviews were conducted in person, in Dari or Pashto, among a random national sample of 1,691 Afghan adults Oct. 29-Nov. 13, 2010. Project design, management and analysis for ABC News were provided by Langer Research Associates.

In sampling, 148 sampling points were distributed proportional to population size in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, stratified by urban/nonurban status. Sampling points then were distributed to randomly selected districts within provinces, also proportionate to population size; and lastly to randomly selected villages or neighborhoods within those districts, by simple random sampling. Sources for population parameters were population projections from the Afghan Central Statistics Office.

Half the sampling points were designated for male interviews, half for female interviews. Male respondents were interviewed only by male interviewers, female respondents only by female interviewers. Residences were selected within each settlement by random route/random interval and respondents were selected within residence by Kish grid.

In addition to the national sample, booster samples were drawn in Balkh, Bamiyan, Farah, Ghazni, Ghor, Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar, Kunduz, Nimroz, Nuristan, Paktia, Panjshir and Wardak provinces via a total of 79 additional sampling points (also stratified by urban/nonurban status), for a combined total of 227 sampling points. The final sample was weighted by population of province and sex by region.

In order to reduce the design effect due to clustering, where randomly drawn male/female sampling points fell within close proximity to each other in districts with fewer than 20,000 residents, the number of sampling points was doubled, also by random selection, and the number of interviews per point was halved, from 10 to five. Sampling points also were halved in Kabul. Of the 227 sampling points, five interviews were conducted in each of 101 points, 10 interviews in each of the remaining 126.