In this video, we will explore a few data collection techniques that can be used to collect input and insights from a diversity of stakeholders. There are numerous stakeholder engagement techniques from public meetings, questionnaires, town halls, kitchen table talks, to key informant interviews, to field observation, the list goes on. Every method has its own strengths and limitations and some methods are more participatory than others. Which information gathering methods are most appropriate will depend on the goal and purpose of the engagement and the specific context and information needs within your initiative. The key is to align the goals of your data collection and consider the stage and phase of your work with the most appropriate data collection technique. For example, if you're at an early planning stage of your engagement and you want to share information and outline your strategy, then you would likely post that information on your website or send an e-mail to your partners and ask them to share it. Versus setting up a focus group or an interview where the expectation would be for a two-way dialogue and conversation. I'm going to briefly review some of the most common qualitative data collection techniques and highlight how they can be used to help you achieve your research objectives. A survey is a structured form or questionnaire distributed to stakeholders or relevant population group. Surveys are used to gather data and are often used to collect specific demographic data, such as location, age, and type of disability. They can be used to assess needs, gain feedback, or collect opinions. Surveys are used to gauge the level of public information about an issue and provide a snapshot of attitudes and ideas at a particular time. Conducting introduces another qualitative method, it allows you to collect information about perceptions, feedback, and comments related to the day-to-day living conditions, as well as personal aspirations and challenges experienced by individuals. Using an interview is one of the best ways to have an accurate and thorough communication of ideas between you and the person for whom you're gathering information. Key informant interviews are often semi-structured interviews with carefully selected stakeholder interviewees who have lived experience or detailed knowledge or relevant experience of the issue under discussion. There's also focus groups, a focus group has a well frames topic and involves a small group of people that fit a set criteria. The goal is to learn about people's opinions on that topic and help plan future actions. Focus groups are usually led by a facilitator and includes semi-structured discussions with a prepared list of questions. There is often built-in flexibility in the agenda in order to explore emerging issues that are brought up by participants. This is a good technique to find out what issues are of most concern for a community or group, when little or no information available. A smaller group allows you to delve deeper into a conversation than you could in a large group. It also allows you to see the conversation, body movements, facial expressions, interactions, providing additional context that is missed in other engagement techniques. There are also citizen committees, subcommittees, or steering groups, these consist of a group of representatives from a particular community. Members meet regularly to provide ongoing input over the duration of the project. These usually have an agreed lifespan and are normally organized at the local level to address a specific issue. Citizen committees are formed based on diverse representation of the community, expertise and interest in an issue or topic area. They are a great opportunity for community members to share ideas and have a voice in decision-making and learn about what other community members think about particular issues or opportunities. Finally, there's ethnographic research, this is qualitative research methods where researchers observe or interact with a study's participants in their real life environment. Ethnography is a creative process of discovering and mapping the cultural patterns within a group. As a research method, it seeks to understand people's habits, rituals, and meanings around activities and objects. The insights I'm covered can help designers explore and understand the people for whom they are designing within a deeper social and cultural context. Ethnographic research does take more time and resources than other research techniques. Because you may have to go through several cycles of observation in order to rule out initial biases and unique situations and this makes it a longer process. I've given you some examples of qualitative data collection techniques, but let me animate them for you, it's often a good practice to use multiple techniques. In a project that I recently worked on, I helped to launch a women's self-employment program, specifically geared towards Inuit women. Before launching the program, we surveyed and met with a variety of stakeholders. We met with Inuit women, we met with business development banks, and we met with other community-based organizations that also support Inuit women. We surveyed them, we held focus groups and we even had kitchen table conversations, which basically meant that women are brought together with culturally specific food to talk about their needs, issues, and aspirations. From the insights received from our stakeholder engagement, we learned that it's really important that we keep very opened and flexible criteria for the women who want to enter the program. In order to make the program more culturally specific, we also engaged elders and made sure that they were a critical part of both the program design and a part of the program itself. The engagement process not only provided us with information to make a better program and a better accessible program, but it also provided a platform for Inuit women, local community champions, those that provide funding for these programs. It gave all of them a platform to network and to build their own connection with each other. When you're planning and thinking through the different types of qualitative data collection methods, I encourage you to use mixed methods and to use different platforms, again, that are culturally appropriate to end low-end TBA local context in mind as well. In summary, I've only highlighted a few qualitative community engagement research techniques. There are many others that include unique creative ways to collect information, some work best online and others, a call for stakeholder input into the actual design of the engagement process. It is important to align the objective of the research, the stage and phase of the initiative with your most appropriate stake holders and the engagement technique. Using a decision making matrix can help you plan and visualize the best options for your initiative.
