Table of Contents >
   Part B. Community Assessment, Agenda Setting, and Choice ... >
      Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources >
         Section 15. Qualitative Methods to Assess Community Issues >
             Tools & Checklists - A checklist that summarizes the major points contained in the section. >

Qualitative Methods to Assess Community Issues

  

Tools & Checklists

 Contributed by Phil Rabinowitz Edited by Bill Berkowitz

Checklist

 

Here you will find a checklist summarizing the important points of the section.

 

What are qualitative methods of assessment?

__ Qualitative methods of assessment yield information that can’t be expressed in numbers.

Qualitative methods include:

__ Individual and group interviews

__ Observation

__ Focus groups

__ Community meetings

__ Interpretation of records, transcripts, and other quantitative data

In order to make your qualitative results as reliable as possible:

__ Report accurately and completely

__ Frame the right questions and direct them appropriately

__ Use the method that can best help you answer the questions you’re asking

__ Sort out your own and others’ subjective feelings and comments from objective reality, and try to make sure that your findings are objective

 

Why use qualitative methods of assessment?

__ They answer questions that quantitative measures can’t.

__ They connect directly with the population and the community you’re concerned with.

__ They can get at the underlying realities of the situation.

__ They involve the population of interest, or the community at large, in helping to assess the issues and needs of the community.

__ They often allow for a broader examination of the situation or the community than quantitative methods do.

__ They allow for the human factor.

 

When would you use qualitative methods of assessment?

__ When what you need is qualitative, descriptive information.

__ When you’re trying to understand the reasons and motivations for people’s behavior, or how they operate in particular situations.

__ When you’re analyzing quantitative data.

__ When you’re trying to develop suggestions and recommendations.

__ When you want to involve the community in assessment as directly as possible.

__ When you’re doing community-based participatory research (i.e., involving the community directly in planning and implementing assessment).

 

How do you use qualitative methods of assessment?

__ Decide what it is you want to know

__ Choose the method best suited to finding that information

__ Choose the people who will gather the information, and, if necessary, train them

__ Determine from whom and from where you need to gather the information

__ Gather the information

 

For interviews:

__ Let the interviewee(s) choose the space

__ Dress for the comfort of the interviewee(s)

__ Get permission beforehand to tape, photograph or videotape the interview

__ Record carefully the time, place, circumstances, and details of the interview.

__ Think out and frame your questions carefully, and ask directly for the information you’re seeking. 

__ Ask open-ended questions.

__ Probe.

__ Don't cut people off too quickly.

__ Confirm what you're told by checking with others to the extent that you can.

__ In group interviews, facilitate by encouraging everyone to participate, preventing any one person from dominating, and keeping the focus on issues and opinions rather than personalities

 

For observation:

__ Think carefully about the questions you want your observation to answer.

__ Determine where and whom to observe to answer these questions

__ Determine when and for how long observation should take place

__ Determine what you should observe and record

__ Record your observations

__ Analyze the information

__ Make and carry out a plan to address the issue or problem you’ve identified

 

 

Tool #1

 

As we discussed in the section, determining the reliability of qualitative data is not easy.  Here's one effort at a solution. 

 

The Cabinet Office of the British government developed a framework for evaluating qualitative studies.  The framework suggests 18 questions that can be applied to any piece of qualitative research to check its reliability.  Not all 18 have to be answered positively, but the more that can be, the more likely the research is to be actually reliable, and accepted as such…at least according to the Cabinet Office.  Here’s the list:

 

1.  How credible are the findings?

2.  How has knowledge or understanding been extended by the research?

3.  How well does the evaluation address its original aims and purpose?

4.  How well is the scope for drawing wider inference explained?

5.  How clear is the basis of evaluative appraisal?

6.  How defensible is the research design?

7.  How well defended are the sample design/target selection of cases/documents?

8.  How well is the eventual sample composition and coverage described?

9.  How well was the data collection carried out?

10.  How well has the approach to and formulation of analysis been conveyed?

11.  How well are the contexts of data sources retained and portrayed?

12.  How well has diversity of perspective and content been explored?

13.  How well has detail, depth and complexity (i.e. richness) of the data been conveyed?

14.  How clear are the links between data, interpretation and conclusions - i.e., how well can the route to any conclusions be seen?

15.  How clear and coherent is the reporting?

16.  How clear are the assumptions/theoretical perspectives/values that have shaped the form and output of the evaluation?

17.  What evidence is there of attention to ethical issues?

18.  How adequately has the research process been documented?