A Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Digital Data Collection Methods in Social Research in LDCs - Case Studies Exploring Implications for Participation, Empowerment, and (mis)Understandings

Abstract

Digital Data Collection (DDC) is an increasingly common method for data collection in developing country contexts, presenting both challenges and benefits to development practitioners and researchers. This paper explores the advantages gained and the difficulties encountered in transitioning from paper-based surveys to digital data collection using handheld devices, and some of the consequences for participants in the research, both researchers and the target population. Surveys undertaken as part of a research collaboration between University College of Cork and organisations in Malawi and Ethiopia form the basis of this assessment, with of a survey-based impact assessment study of Valid Nutrition's Groundnut Purchasing Scheme with Smallholder Producers in Malawi and Ethiopia forming the centrepiece. The researchers have evaluated data-gathering on these different technologies, reflected on the methods used and approaches taken in transferring and implementing the process, and evaluated each process in terms of its relative effectiveness, efficiency and their implications for researchers and researched.