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Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone

OBJECTIVE: Standardized pretest–posttest experimental designs with quantitative surveys are frequently applied to evaluate the effectiveness of health programs. However, this method is strongly informed by research on samples from Western, Educated, Industralized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societ...

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Autores principales: Luetke Lanfer, Hanna, Reifegerste, Doreen, Kargbo, Sorie Ibrahim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8597296/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34789341
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13104-021-05828-w
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author Luetke Lanfer, Hanna
Reifegerste, Doreen
Kargbo, Sorie Ibrahim
author_facet Luetke Lanfer, Hanna
Reifegerste, Doreen
Kargbo, Sorie Ibrahim
author_sort Luetke Lanfer, Hanna
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: Standardized pretest–posttest experimental designs with quantitative surveys are frequently applied to evaluate the effectiveness of health programs. However, this method is strongly informed by research on samples from Western, Educated, Industralized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies and may not produce meaningful results in a distinct cultural, educational and socioeconomic context. RESULTS: This paper reports several methodological challenges encountered along the research process of collecting quantitative survey data (i.e., during recruitment, obtaining informed consent, matching pretest–posttest data and data collection) for a mixed-methods field experiment on domestic handwashing in Sierra Leone. Ethical dilemmas of certain research practices are pointed out and potential solutions or alternatives are recommended for each challenge. Analysis of these challenges highlights the importance of reflecting on the aptness of research methodologies for non-WEIRD samples. While this is not to say that quantitative surveys are not suitable in a non-WEIRD context, their employment require considerable time for extensive pilot testing, involving local interviewers and participants in designing research projects and the modification of data collection strategies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-021-05828-w.
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spelling pubmed-85972962021-11-17 Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone Luetke Lanfer, Hanna Reifegerste, Doreen Kargbo, Sorie Ibrahim BMC Res Notes Research Note OBJECTIVE: Standardized pretest–posttest experimental designs with quantitative surveys are frequently applied to evaluate the effectiveness of health programs. However, this method is strongly informed by research on samples from Western, Educated, Industralized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies and may not produce meaningful results in a distinct cultural, educational and socioeconomic context. RESULTS: This paper reports several methodological challenges encountered along the research process of collecting quantitative survey data (i.e., during recruitment, obtaining informed consent, matching pretest–posttest data and data collection) for a mixed-methods field experiment on domestic handwashing in Sierra Leone. Ethical dilemmas of certain research practices are pointed out and potential solutions or alternatives are recommended for each challenge. Analysis of these challenges highlights the importance of reflecting on the aptness of research methodologies for non-WEIRD samples. While this is not to say that quantitative surveys are not suitable in a non-WEIRD context, their employment require considerable time for extensive pilot testing, involving local interviewers and participants in designing research projects and the modification of data collection strategies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-021-05828-w. BioMed Central 2021-11-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8597296/ /pubmed/34789341 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13104-021-05828-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Note
Luetke Lanfer, Hanna
Reifegerste, Doreen
Kargbo, Sorie Ibrahim
Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title_full Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title_fullStr Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title_full_unstemmed Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title_short Collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-WEIRD population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural Sierra Leone
title_sort collecting quantitative experimental data from a non-weird population: challenges and practical recommendations from a field experiment in rural sierra leone
topic Research Note
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8597296/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34789341
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13104-021-05828-w
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