Slideshow submission for University of Guelph course EDRD: 6000

1. Addressing
Researcher Bias
in Participatory
Rural Appraisal
A Slideshow by Nigel Joyce for
EDRD: 6000
University of Guelph

2. Overview
 What is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)?
 Research Bias
 Bias in PRA
 Addressing Bias
 Addressing Bias: A case study
 Conclusion

3. What is Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA)?
 Robert Chambers, one of the original proponents of PRA,
described it as “a family of approaches and methods to
enable rural people to share, embrace and analyze their
knowledge and conditions, to plan, and to act” (Robinson,
2002)
 Researcher works directly with the community to identify
key issues and develop a plan to address them
 Main benefit lies to the community lies in the process of
PRA
 Very interactive research method between the researcher
and the study population
 Its success is reliant on, the relationships formed
between the researcher and the participants, and the
active involvement of the participants
 Both of these factors however open the research method
up to the possibility of researcher bias
Source:http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/inbrief/20
12/09/20120924136470.html#axzz42BKaNjch
Source: http://www.wallacefdn.org/

4. Researcher Bias
 Researcher bias is where individual opinions of the
researcher or the research design influence the
results.
 In qualitative research this is a particularly prominent
issue as it is “through the researcher’s facilitative
interaction where [participants] share rich data
regarding their experiences and life world” (Chenail,
2011).
 The researcher is an instrument in the data collection
process.
 The data therefore is always shaped in some way by
the researcher.

5. Bias in PRA
 Several types of bias can arise in PRA including:
 Cultural barriers
 Different cultural practices and beliefs can influence both how a
researcher interacts with participants and how participants interact
with the researcher both of which can skew results.
 Power relations
 A researcher often represents the influence, money and power of
their backing institution which can impact the relationships and the
type of data participants provide.
 Already present power relations in the community may also influence
the types of participation.
 Type of participation
 PRA relies on community involvement which can be shaped by the
individuals willing to participate and those that are not
 Identified issues and desired goals may therefore not be
representative of the entire population.

6. Bias in PRA
 Researcher specific bias
 Goals
 Upon entering the community the researcher may already have
a goal for the PRA which would influence the direction of their
questions.
 Opinions
 PRA is process designed to engage the community and get
them to identify issues and work out how to address them both
of which do not work if the researcher is overriding the process
with their own opinions.
 Relationships
 Throughout the PRA process the researcher can develop
strong ties with the community and with individual participants
these relationships can degrade the PRA process if they allow
these relationships to shape the research by favouring certain
respondents over others.

7. Addressing Bias
 Poggenpoel and Myburgh (2003) said “the researcher as
an instrument can be the greatest threat to
trustworthiness in qualitative research”
 The key to maintaining trust in research is to reduce bias
as much as possible and address it wherever it cannot be
reduced.
 A skillful researcher will be able to reduce their own
biases by “staying humble and preferring to work in
teams” (Poggenpoel and Myburgh, 2003).
 Working in groups (even just in partners) greatly reduces
the opportunity for personal opinions, goals and
relationships from acting as bias in the research.
 Developing strong qualitative research skills with the
ability to reduce personal bias and address other biases
that may be evident takes training and practice (Chenail,
2011).

8. Addressing Bias: Case Study
 Mohammed and Danjuma (2014) used PRA in order to look into
the issue of forest conservation and protection in Katsina State in
Nigeria.
 Through the course of their research and work they identified the
following biases that may arise:
 Only meeting individuals that are highly accessible or well-to-do
 Receiving only quantitative data and missing meaningful insights due
to difficulties in receiving in-depth participation
 They overcame these biases by:
 Performing reconnaissance to identify, communities, user groups, and
managers.
 Conducting various methods with each of the stakeholder groups to
encourage both participation and to garner more meaningful in-depth
data
 Looked at issues in groups with the local leaders and without in order
to reduce any impact of power relations.
 Included do it yourself exercises to allow for in-depth views from
participants.
 Identified strengths and weaknesses of each exercise and the data it
collected to account for any remaining biases in the data collected

9. Conclusion
 Some bias in qualitative research is unavoidable due to the
researcher being an instrument in data collection.
 This bias is extenuated in PRA due to the relationships that
form between the study participants and the researcher due
to highly interactive nature of the methods.
 Due to the high possibility of bias (if left unchecked) in PRA
researchers must aim to identify, reduce and address bias
as much as possible in their work.
 We looked at several ways this could be accomplished and
at how this was accomplished by Mohhamed and Danjuma
(2014) in their study.
 One final tip would be to always be skeptical, even of your
own work, as there may be unaccounted for bias
influencing the results.

10. References
 Chenail, R., (2011). Interviewing the Investigator: Strategies for Addressing
Instrumentation and researcher bias concerns in qualitative research. The Qualitative
Report 16(1): 255-262).
 Devendra, C., (2007). Constraint analysis to improve integrated dairy production
systems in developing countries: The importance of participatory rural appraisal. Trop
Animal Health Prod 39: 549-556.
 Leurs, R., (1996). Current Challenges Facing participatory rural appraisal. Public
Administration and Development 16(1): 57-73.
 Lilja, N., and J. Dixon, (2008). Responding to the challenges of impact assessment of
participatory research and gender analysis. Exp., Agric. 44: 3-19.
 Mohammed, S., and M. N. Danjuma, (2014). Linking Participatory Rural appraisal to
forest protection and conservation in Katsina state of Nigeria. European Scientific
Journal, 10(20): 244-262.
 Poggenpoel, M., & Myburgh, S. (2003). The researcher as research instrument in
educational research: A possible threat to trustworthiness? Education, 124(2), 418-421.
 Robinson, L., (2002). Introduction to public rural appraisal: A brief introduction. Group
Facilitation 4: 29-36.