Community Based Research Methods
Determining Public Needs and Priorities in Proposed Projects
Culturally appropriate research is vital to the success of any proposed project. There are ways to ensure the needs and priorities of a community are well thought-out.
A research project exploring the needs and priorities of community development will require collaboration among the stakeholders. The process can be broken down into distinct phases. These include planning, cultural and ethical concerns, public facilitation, survey research, formulation of a recommendation and reporting back to the community.
Planning - The initial planning effort is establishing the stakeholders and those who could benefit or be harmed from implementation of the project. Form a steering committee to brainstorm the issues that need to be discussed and how the study would be conducted. There should be an overarching plan for the project in place and a clear understanding of its goals established early on in the project. Planning should be composed of at least two major components, a public facilitation process, and a survey research project. The steering committee will be very important in determining the scope of these efforts.
Ethical and Cultural Concerns – Ethical and cultural concerns, and protections will be inadequate without planning and review of the project. Once the research design is complete, it is likely it will need to be reviewed by an outside agency. University researchers have the Institution Review Board and projects involving Federal funding probably require pre-approval from the Office of Management and Budget. Using your steering committee, establish who can truly speak for the good of the community. They as a whole need to be informed as to the nature of the study, how data will be handled, if the information gathered will remain confidential, who has power to comment and review the work project, who is the ultimate owner of the work product.
Public Facilitation – One facilitation process used by the Rural Development Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks would work well in this instance. It is especially well suited to identification of community needs and priorities.
- Planning – Using your steering committee, identify good times for holding a series of meetings within the community. Meetings should not conflict with regularly occurring community events like ball games or council meeting. An effort needs to be made to identify the people who should be included in the facilitation meetings.
- The Facilitation Process should be spread over the period of three to four meetings that take no more than three hours each. Subjects to be discussed will include identifying what is sacred in the community, establishing a vision for the community, identifying strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, creation of action plans and follow up of project plans.
- The Facilitator needs to be considered neutral by the community and hopefully someone who is also respected there. Consider using a team approach to the meeting process. Use ice breakers and keep the process interesting.
Survey Research – There are three categories of conducting survey research. They are mail surveys, telephone surveys, and face-to-face interviews. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses. A mail survey has a good chance of being statistically accurate because the cost of providing the test instrument to a larger group is cheaper. Mail surveys also require less formal training. Telephone surveys require more personnel training and can be very representative of smaller populations if there is a good calling list. Face-to-face interviews require the most effort and commitment. While training may not be mandatory for a personal interview, it would be a huge benefit to the researcher. Part of the research plan would have to address how transcripts and recording of oral interviews are handled and archived.
Formulation of a Recommendation – After this entire effort, there should be a lot to look at. Develop a draft recommendation based on the data, and ask the steering committee and community representatives to review it. Seriously consider their suggestions and allow your support group a chance to include a section in the report expressing their concerns for the project. The project sponsor will want a copy of the final work product. Take time to return to the community and present the findings to them. Depending on the nature of the work and the results, determine with the group how information should be shared with others.
The most important considerations for community-based research are good planning, communications with those being researched, clear expectations from everyone involved and respect. Respect of the people involved in the research being the very most important consideration.
