Kish grid

Kish grid, Kish selection table

A widely used technique in survey research, by which interviewers who have been issued with a sample of household addresses can then sample individuals on the doorstep, by following simple and rigorous rules for selecting one person to interview from among household residents. The technique involves constructing a list of eligible individuals at a particular address, ordered by age, and then selecting according to the serial number of the address itself. The system is devised so that all individuals in a household have an equal chance of selection. Its major difficulty is that the individual who supplies the household listing is often not the one to be interviewed (see, ‘A Procedure for Objective Respondent Selection Within the Household’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1949).