SAGA Proposal: Qualitatitive and Quantitative Methods

SAGA
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SAGA Research Proposal:

1.3.1 Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

We are particularly interested in research strategies that combine quantitative and qualitative methods, an area where Cornell faculty have taken a leading role both in theory and in practice (Assié-Lumumba 2000; Assié-Lumumba 1994c; Assié-Lumumba 1993b; Barrett forthcoming (b); Kanbur 2001). A March, 2001, conference at Cornell brought together leading global practitioners of both qualitative and quantitative methods for the study of poverty. Participants identified three ways in which researchers might benefit from working together: triangulation, sequential mixing, and simultaneous mixing.

Triangulation is the simplest of the three approaches. To paraphrase Robert Chambers (2001), this is simply sending one team each of qualitative and quantitative researchers off to do their best, on their own, and then bringing them together to discuss and compare results. Triangulation checks for similar findings from the different methods. While we anticipate some use of this approach in the Cooperative Agreement, particularly where we use data already collected by others, we will do better than mere triangulation in most of our research.

Martin Ravallion (2001) suggests the idea of sequential mixing. In this approach, a project might begin with qualitative methods - focus groups, unstructured interview, or ethnographies — that bring out interesting ideas and perspectives on a particular research theme. A quantitative analyst could then devise hypotheses consistent with these ideas to be tested with data from representative samples. That work, in turn, might suggest interesting issues for future, more focused, qualitative investigations, etc. We expect to use this type of sequential mixing extensively in our project. In fact, the methods that we will use to identify specific research topics and to ensure the policy impact of our work rely heavily on this type of iterative interaction between stakeholders, researchers, data, and policy makers.

Simultaneous mixing is the more difficult of the three alternatives. The idea here is to insert qualitative methods directly into a quantitative study, and vice-versa. Our consortium has practiced this successfully in Africa already (Assié-Lumumba 1994b; Barrett forthcoming(b); Smith, Barrett and Box 2001; Little et al. 2001). We see several further concrete possibilities for simultaneous mixing of research strategies. For example, one of the most cited, and most accepted, weaknesses of qualitative methods is that the ideas and perspectives expressed by individual interviewees or focus group participants are not representative of a larger population. To respond somewhat to this limitation, qualitative researchers could choose to site their study in the same place where a representative quantitative survey takes (or took) place. This, at least, would allow the qualitative researchers to put their conversations in perspective by comparing (quantitatively) the sample from that place with the entire sample.

Another example is contingent valuation, a method in which the researchers conduct a quantitative-type survey, but with questions more familiar to psychologists than economists. In particular, researchers explore the value of public services (e.g., police protection; see Pradhan and Ravallion 2000) or institutions to recipients by asking a carefully phrased equivalent of "how much is this worth to you?" A similar effort at contingent valuation was made in the context of a survey in Tanzania designed to examine health and education status and service delivery in Tanzania. One of the objectives of the survey was to understand the factors that influence the demand for health and education services, particularly the influence of school and clinic quality (Sahn, Younger, and Genicot 2000). We are interested in exploring the use of such methods in our research, particularly when evaluating public goods.

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