As with all data collection methods, issues of inclusion, representation, access and safety should be kept in mind. Different data collection methods may be more conducive to engaging with different groups of people in your community. It is important to consider people’s past experiences and familiarity with particular participation methods – if any – and identify which types may be optimal for your intended purpose, the nature of your community and the resources of your core team.
For example, how will you ensure that you listen to opinions from diverse community members, not just those known to the local authority or with higher levels of socioeconomic status or influence? How will you reach, for example, diverse women, youth, ethno-linguistic-religious minorities, people with disabilities, those outside the city center, residents of rural areas, internal or external migrants in the community, indigent persons and others who face various systemic institutional, sociocultural and individual barriers to public participation? Or, if you are trying to engage with a particular sector of the community about whose views the local authority knows little, what method might be most optimal for them? Beyond this, how will you ensure that these diverse individuals can meaningfully participate, given their life circumstances and time limitations?
While not an exhaustive list, the following considerations should be kept in mind when determining your preferred outreach approaches:
- Literacy rates and numeracy knowledge within your community: Do different groups in the community have different literacy and numeracy rates? The advantage of discussion-based focus groups compared to surveys is that they do not require all participants to be literate and can reach more people than an individual survey. Consequently, face-to-face interviews or FGDs may be preferable for persons with lower literacy or numeracy skills.
- Physical ability and visual impairment: If people are required to travel to a FGD or interview outside their home or local area, safe and reliable transportation may hinder their participation. Would a different method be more accommodating?
- Sociocultural norms and practices: In some contexts, engagement in public life is dominated by adult men, and women and youth are not free to speak up in group settings about public affairs; they may not even be able to comfortably sit in on the events. If surveys are distributed to a household, the family may assume that only the male head of the household should respond. These sociocultural norms often interact with differential rates of literacy and numeracy among women and men, or among women and men from different ethno-religious-linguistic groups, socioeconomic statuses or urban/rural locations. Where the norms around public engagement differ for different groups or genders, it is important to ensure that data collection methods are accessible to these different groups. Would a woman-only FGD be useful? Should multiple surveys be distributed to a household, with specific requests for feedback from all adults individually? Do written surveys or materials need to be translated into several languages? Should the lead interviewer and the participant interviewee be of the same sex or the same ethno-religious-linguistic group? There may also be a technology gender gap within families.
- Language diversity and clarity: Do members of your community speak different languages? Even in communities where one language is dominant or officially designated as the language of government, people within the community will vary in their levels of oral and written fluency and comfort. Even if people are fluent in a language, they may not grasp highly formal or technical terms. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the choice of language used in your data collection process – and clarity of word choice and phrasing – is accessible, easy to understand, in plain terms (not just formal/technical), and sensitive to diverse ethno-religious-linguistic and other identity characteristics. Testing your survey or questionnaires can be a useful method to determine whether your questions and word choices are appropriate.
- Caregiving and other employment responsibilities: Most people have a range of responsibilities and burdens that impact their availability to engage with public affairs. Women often have multiple caregiving responsibilities, such as caring for children and older or disabled relatives, managing the household, and going to the market or fetching water; on top of this, women may also be employed outside the home. Similarly, for men, those with irregular employment or who work shift hours may have schedules that make it difficult to participate in meetings or to be interviewed during regular local authority business hours. To accommodate various caregiving and employment responsibilities, schedule data collection events to ensure participation. Consider offsetting caregiving burdens by providing childcare or small honorariums for participation.
- Safety: As part of do no harm, safety is a key consideration when planning for data collection. Safety considerations refer to both the data collection team (enumerators) and the community member participants providing data. If enumerators will be walking along streets, through neighborhoods, and knocking on doors, how can you ensure they will be safe? For example, will they have a pin, badge or shirt that identifies them as officials? Similarly, how can you ensure that the people they will engage with will be safe from potential harassment, exploitation or other abuse – especially if enumerators are volunteers or contractors not well known to the local authority? More broadly, might any sociocultural or household beliefs or practices put participants at risk for engaging with enumerators – for instance, if a male enumerator conducted an interview with a female community member in her home? A common approach to mitigate safety risks is to have enumerators work in pairs, depending on their availability for your feedback loop process. Additionally, consider the gender composition of the enumerator pairs. If trying to engage with both men and women community members, mixed pairs or teams of two women or two men may be advisable, depending on the context. Such considerations should be applied to door-to-door engagements (such as survey delivery), FGDs and interviews. Additional considerations include the time of day that data collection takes place (i.e., if after business hours, are there any traffic or crime risks that enumerators may face?), location of data collection, type of and access to transportation, and awareness of sociocultural norms and practices.
As part of your planning, you should discuss and try to address any personal concerns your team members may raise about their role in the given data collection approach.