Research Methods Resources

Research Methods Resources

Our learning process

Quick links to some resources on this page

Our learning process

Our current ideas on teaching research methods

A probable future

Our learning process

Several years ago, the contents of this website (and CD-rom) would have been different (see also the history of this website). Several events and experiences made us change our approach. Two of them are well documented and we would like to share them with you.

The first is an essay writing competition that was organised by the VVOB Capacity Strengthening in Research Methods project based at the ILRI-ICRAF Research Methods Group together with The East African, a regional magazine. In this essay competition, we were calling on the many talented, qualified researchers languishing in the region's public research institutions to answer some questions such as what is the problem with the quality of our research? Is it lack of funds and infrastructure or poor salaries and motivation or organizational issues? Or all of the above? How can it be solved? Alternatively, participants were asked to describe an effective research project in which you participated that had a quantifiable impact in its field and analyse the reasons for its success.

The second is a workshop in which the supply side (universities) and the demand side (research institutes) of the product "researcher" were brought together to discuss a range of problems. Participants discussed how they could overcome the problems in a rather short term and at individual level.

Our current ideas on teaching research methods

Evaluation and progress monitoring is part of the activities of every professional, also for professionals active in training researchers or teaching students. While only part of our students might be future researchers, an understanding of how research works (how information is collected and evaluated) is needed not only by professionals labeled as 'researchers' or 'scientists' but by professionals in government departments, NGOs and private companies. The boundaries between research and other organisations have become blurred. 

When we ask ourselves if we are doing a good job in teaching research methods, we should try to look for an objective, independent and external assessment of our outputs and outcomes. We might be working 80 hours per week and thinking we are doing a great job but in the end it's the outputs and outcomes that count.

To define the outputs and outcomes, let's see how our impact on the two main characteristics of doing research is assessed:

• research is a structured way of learning to solve problems the society is facing

• research is all about communicating the results

While much of the ongoing research in East and Central Africa is of good quality and there are some brilliant researchers around, several assessments have also shown that generally there is often little impact in the field, there are few publications in peer-reviewed international journals, proposed solutions from research have a low success rate and African research rarely manages to influence the world agenda.

Even though we might be working hard, this is absolutely not a positive evaluation!

But let's not despair and let's try to find out the deeper reasons. If we look for instance at the common reasons why papers are rejected in journals, we have at the same time an idea of what is wrong with the quality and impact of research. Those common reasons are Greenhalgh (2001):

• The study did not address an important scientific issue
• The study was not original (someone else had already done the same or a similar study)
• The study did not actually test the authors' hypothesis
• A different type of study should have been done
• Practical difficulties (in recruiting subjects, for example) led the authors to compromise on the original study protocol
• The sample size was too small
• The study was uncontrolled or inadequately controlled
• The statistical analysis was incorrect or inappropriate
• The authors drew unjustified conclusions from their data
• There is a significant conflict of interest (one of the authors, or a sponsor, might benefit financially from the publication of the paper and insufficient safeguards were seen to be in place to guard against bias)
• The paper is so badly written that it is incomprehensible

At the same time we are working now in a globalised era where computers and Internet have become our daily tools. Also, donors want results and not only look at the quality of research but also the impact in the field and want us to take issues such as gender and ethics into consideration.

This implies that if we want our students to become good researchers, we should teach them a whole range of toolboxes, such as:

• initial problem analysis

• find, manage, use and critically review literature

• referencing and plagiarism

• data management

• computer literacy and software skills

• statistics

• writing skills and other skills to communicate research results

• what after the publication: impact and closing the loop

• ethics

• gender issues

• working in teams, with supervisors, …

In reality however, our research methods course is often a course in statistics. Usually we teach by giving a lecture because we have been doing it for years, we have our lecture notes prepared and we don't have the time nor the energy to change it. And we went through the same system anyhow, so what is so wrong with it?

The above-mentioned evaluation gave the answer.

“We know already for quite some time that current approaches have failed. Not only statisticians but also psychologists and educators realise that a large proportion of students do not understand many of the basic statistical concepts they have studied” (Garfield and Ahlgren, 1988)

Many students simply fear or thoroughly hate statistics and the average and the attention span of students in an average lecture can only be maintained for about 10 to 15 minutes (Bligh, 1999). Our students leave our courses with a limited understanding of basic concepts that can be applied to new problems. We will only get a positive evaluation if we change our tools and methods based teaching approach into a problem based teaching approach and if we manage to expand the view of what research methods is all about by moving beyond statistics and biometrics to problem solving based on sound principles and covering the whole research process from initial problem analysis to publication of research results and looking at their impact in the field.

This will take time and effort, but we can go a long way by starting to do things differently within our 'lousy' system, by stopping to work in isolation and by looking around in the literature and the Internet for resources and approaches that have proven their usefulness. 

References

Bligh, D. A. (1999). What's the use of lectures? Penguin.

Bloom, D., Canning, D., & Chan, K. (2006) Higher education and economic development in Africa. Harvard University , accessed on-line (click here) on 19 March 2007.

FARA (2006) Agricultural research delivery in Africa: an assessment of the requirements for efficient, effective and productive national agricultural research systems in Africa . Executive summary and strategic recommendations. 31 pp. FARA, Accra , Ghana. Accessed on-line at http://www.fara-africa.org/files/NARS%20Assessment%20exec%20sum.pdf on 19 March 2007.

FARA (2006) Agricultural research delivery in Africa: an assessment of the requirements for efficient, effective and productive national agricultural research systems in Africa . Main report and strategic recommendations. 52 pp. FARA, Accra , Ghana. Accessed on-line at http://www.fara-africa.org/files/NARS%20Assessment%20main%20report.pdf on 19 March 2007.

Garfield, J. and A. Ahlgren (1988). "Difficulties in Learning Basic Concepts in Probability and Statistics: Implications for Research." Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 19(1): 44 - 63

Greenhalgh, Trisha. (2001). How to read a paper. The basics of evidence based medicine. London, BMJ books. 222 pp.

The World Bank (1994). Higher Education. The lessons of experience. Washington, USA, The World Bank.

The World Bank (2002). Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education. Washington, USA, The World Bank.

Watson, R., M. Crawford, et al. (2003). Strategic approaches to science and technology development. Washington, USA, The World Bank.

Improving the effectiveness of research for development in East and Southern Africa

There is a recognized need to overhaul the current approach to capacity building for science and technology. We do not distinguish much between the terms research, science, technology and innovation. Rather, we recognize the importance of the relationship between these activities. Many recent policy documents stress their importance for development and for building knowledge societies.

They also express a renewed interest in the contributions of tertiary education systems to the knowledge economy. We use the World Bank definition of 'tertiary education systems': a network of NARs, regional research networks, universities, polytechnics, private research firms, centres of excellece, ...

In Sub-Saharan Africa, many reforms of the tertiary education systems have made slow progress. We propose a model of intervention that complements, rather than competes with, other initiatives and are novel but based on proven approaches. We propose to improve the capacity of researchers in the region through interventions which build on principles of self-learning, critical thinking and accessing available resources.

The paper we put on-line is a draft version of a working paper. We will further work on it but meanwhile welcome your comments.

RHAPSODES draft working paper 22 March 2007.doc (504 KB)

RHAPSODES draft working paper 22 March 2007.pdf (558 KB)

On 7 and 8 May 2007, RUFORUM (Regional Universities Forum for capacity building in agriculture) together with the ICRAF-ILRI Research Methods group and the VVOB Capacity Strengthening in Research Methods project organised a regional planning meeting/proposal development workshop to put the ideas into practice. The result of this workshop is that 4 regional networks joined hands to further develop the project: RUFORUM, ASARECA, African Academy of Sciences and the CGIAR Regional Plan for Collective Action in Eastern & Southern Africa.

Workshop program

RHAPSODES meeting final programme.xls (25 KB)

RHAPSODES project concept note written after the workshop

RHAPSODES concept 30 May 2007.doc (115 KB)

The draft workshop report includes the beginning of a project logframe. The document is rather long. Most important pages are page 26 (cause-effect relations of the problems) and page 45-60 (beginning of project logframe and project organisation). RUFORUM is working to further operationalise the RHAPSODES project.

RHAPSODES draft workshop report (1,643 KB)

Research Methods Resources

GenStat Discovery Edition