Methods Toolbox

Toolbox Contents

Overarching issues

• The ethics of poverty research
• Confronting bias and assumptions
• Research and children
• Research and older people
• Research and impairment and disability
• Research and HIV/AIDS
• Research and conflict
• Developing international research partnerships

Designing research

• The research design process
• Types of poverty-oriented research
• Selecting a unit of analysis
• The quantitative-qualitative distinction

Combining methods

• Combining methods and triangulation
• Summary of common research methods
• How to choose which methods or mix of methods to use?
• Strengths and weaknesses of key methods
• When are key methods appropriate?
• Additional strengths and weaknesses of participatory methods

Collecting data

• Participatory approaches
  • Strengths and weaknesses of participatory approaches
  • Online links to guides for methods specific to participatory research
• Livelihoods approaches
  • Livelihoods introduction
  • Link to DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Framework Diagram
    (Word doc)
  • Link to DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
    (Links to www.livelihoods.org)
  • Principles of livelihoods research
  • Examples of the livelihoods framework in practice
  • Livelihoods checklist
• Focus groups and interviews
  • Methods for focus group discussions
  • Interviews
  • Interviewing techniques
• Case studies
• Life histories

Analysing data

• Coding and analysis
• Political analysis
  • Introduction and theoretical survey
  • Rights-based development
  • Political capital
  • Researching the politics of chronic poverty
  • Social exclusion
• Quantitative analysis
  • Testing and adjusting for attrition in Household Panel Data
    This note describes the use of a simple procedure to correct for attrition due to observables in household panel survey: inverse probability weights. The procedure involves estimating two probit regressions, one with and one without variables that are significantly associated with attrition, and using the ratio of predicted probabilities from these regressions to reweight the observations. The procedure is illustrated in Stata using data from part of the CPRC-DATA-IFPRI panel in rural Bangladesh.
• Creating and Interpreting Contour plots using DASP and GNUPLOT
  This notes describes how contour plots, which are two dimensional representations of welfare distributions that can be regarded as a continuous analogue to transition matrices, can be creating using the Stata package DASP and the graphics package gnuplot. The procedure is illustrated with panel data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey from 2002 to 2006. Also related source data: VNexample.dat and VNexample.dta.

Writing up

Dissemination

• Policy engagement and media influence resource pack

Resources and Glossary

Contributors