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Sometimes we thought that all beneficiaries or users of our monitoring activities is the same but actually different group have different backgrounds. As monitoring team, we need to understand and get to know our users so we can collect collective good data.

Sometimes we thought that all beneficiaries or users of our monitoring activities is the same but actually different group have different backgrounds. As monitoring team, we need to understand and get to know our users so we can collect collective good data.

aids must not constitute a danger

Yes. before collecting the data, its very important to know who you are you collecting data? Why you are collecting data? their background which methods they prefered to do. Because if we have no idea about who are you collecting data then our data will failed.

Understanding your users is all about creating the research to fits their life.This include incorporating techniques that permit the researcher to progress in research while valuing the participants norms and tradition.

Understanding our users is very important. Especially on the language issue and their access to different types of technologies like mobile phones and email among others.

Usually, some of the information, provided that the focus is on the areas where the refuse,
including, age, disclosure of information they suspect,
may be taken, action indicating the inclusion, date of birth, and whether the information is protected.

Understanding your users can help you to anticipate and avoid many problems by learning about the group of people from whom you will be gathering data.

In my country for instance looking at an elderly in the eyes is considered as a sign of disrespect by contrast considered in some counries as someone lying.Understanding those values and cultures is really important to make data accurate.

I APPRECIATE THE TOPIC WAS NICE

Stakeholders are the people that are affected by our project and you need to understand your participants before choosing data collection methods.

Understanding your users from whom you are gathering information from is very crucial as it informs the approach taken in designing the tools of data collection. Data collection is very sensitive on the nature of the participants including ; age, literacy levels, ethnic background etc. when this factors are put into consideration, issues arising during data collection will be minimal

A que olhar por varios pontos

During data collection process it is important to understand your users. What kind of data they need, why they need them and at what frequency do they need them. This will help to collect the useful data.

Why it is imoprtant to understand data user in data collection process?

Also you have to know the interest of other users.

To ensure that your data collection tools work well for the group of people you are collecting data from, it is important to both:

1. Understand the group of people you will be working with before designing the tools.
2. Monitor data collection to see whether unexpected issues arise.

Good discussion

Understanding our users allows us to anticipate and avoid many problems by learning about the group of people we will collect data from.

People differs, and it's expected that data collection tools should also be different and distinct to a particular context

The consequences of failing to properly collect data include the inability to answer your research questions, inability to validate the results, distorted findings, wasted resources, misleading recommendations and decisions, and harm to participants

What are issues that may arise during data collection and interpretation?
Challenges in current data collection practices

Inconsistent data collection standards. ...
Context of data collection. ...
Data collection is not core to business function. ...
Complexity. ...
Lack of training in data collection. ...
Lack of quality assurance processes. ...
Changes to definitions and policies and maintaining data comparability.

Are there missing data or discouraging patterns?
If there are missing data but the questions that follows are:
How do I know if my data is missing at random?
The only true way to distinguish between MNAR and Missing at Random is to measure the missing data. In other words, you need to know the values of the missing data to determine if it is MNAR. It is common practice for a surveyor to follow up with phone calls to the non-respondents and get the key information.

What percentage of missing data is acceptable?
@shuvayan - Theoretically, 25 to 30% is the maximum missing values are allowed, beyond which we might want to drop the variable from analysis. Practically this varies.At times we get variables with ~50% of missing values but still the customer insist to have it for analyzing.

Techniques for Handling the Missing Data

1. Listwise or case deletion. ...
2. Pairwise deletion. ...
3. Mean substitution. ...
4. Regression imputation. ...
5. Last observation carried forward. ...
6. Maximum likelihood. ...
7. Expectation-Maximization. ...
8. Multiple imputation.

How do you impute missing data?
The following are common methods:

1. Mean imputation. Simply calculate the mean of the observed values for that variable for all individuals who are non-missing. ...
2. Substitution. ...
3. Hot deck imputation. ...
4. Cold deck imputation. ...
5. Regression imputation. ...
6. Stochastic regression imputation. ...
7. Interpolation and extrapol

T here are seven things you can do about that missing data:

1. Listwise Deletion: Delete all data from any participant with missing values. If your sample is large enough, then you likely can drop data without substantial loss of statistical power. Be sure that the values are missing at random and that you are not inadvertently removing a class of participants.
2. Recover the Values: You can sometimes contact the participants and ask them to fill out the missing values. For in-person studies, we’ve found having an additional check for missing values before the participant leaves helps.
   Imputation
   Imputation is replacing missing values with substitute values. The following methods use some form of imputation.
3. Educated Guessing: It sounds arbitrary and isn’t your preferred course of action, but you can often infer a missing value. For related questions, for example, like those often presented in a matrix, if the participant responds with all “4s”, assume that the missing value is a 4.
4. Average Imputation: Use the average value of the responses from the other participants to fill in the missing value. If the average of the 30 responses on the question is a 4.1, use a 4.1 as the imputed value. This choice is not always recommended because it can artificially reduce the variability of your data but in some cases makes sense.
5. Common-Point Imputation: For a rating scale, using the middle point or most commonly chosen value. For example, on a five-point scale, substitute a 3, the midpoint, or a 4, the most common value (in many cases). This is a bit more structured than guessing, but it’s still among the more risky options. Use caution unless you have good reason and data to support using the substitute value.
6. Regression Substitution: You can use multiple-regression analysis to estimate a missing value. We use this technique to deal with missing SUS scores. Regression substitution predicts the missing value from the other values. In the case of missing SUS data, we had enough data to create stable regression equations and predict the missing values automatically in the calculator.
7. Multiple Imputation: The most sophisticated and, currently, most popular approach is to take the regression idea further and take advantage of correlations between responses. In multiple imputation [pdf], software creates plausible values based on the correlations for the missing data and then averages the simulated datasets by incorporating random errors in your predictions. It is one of a number of examples where computers continue to change the statistical landscape. Most statistical packages like SPSS come with a multiple-imputation feature. More on multiple imputation.
   Missing data is like a medical concern: ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Ideally your data is missing at random and one of these seven approaches will help you make the most of the data you have.

Due to the cultural and technological challenges, Marwa could do the following idea:

1. Create one or two explanatory workshops with a target of 50-100 participants, whereby the communication is verbal
2. Filling the surveys after workshop with some help from Marwa's team if needed

Indeed its quite meaningful to understand the type of people whom you are going to collect data from

Indeed its quite meaningful to understand the type of people whom you are going to collect data from

Understanding participants is important in deciding the type of data collecting tool and how the tool will be used. The prevalent language, culture, level of education, and availability/ease of use of technology by participants is very important.

It is important to understand your users because failure to do that inaccurate and unreliable data would be collected. If the data collectors do not understand the language spoken by the people to collect data from, it would result in a language barrier, hence inaccurate data. If the data collectors are not competent enough to use the data tools and processes, data collected will not give the true reflection of what is to be analyzed, wrong analysis. It is also important to understand the demographic distribution of the population, the literacy levels and some cultural norms.

Data collection is the second most important step after considering ethics in M&E...

This may make it difficult as you are trying to understand your population and then later on, observe it...

To cover for differences in characteristics of respondents, a thorough needs assessment would be very cardinal. This is vital because studies and projects are costly and money cannot be wasted anyhow...

Acceptability of the project also has a bearing on how receptive respondents are during data collection...

This become very cardinal when issues of internal and external validity arise...

very essential

Culture is very cardinal as it also influences people's attitudes, behaviors, beliefs and norms...

Understanding target groups is really important as well as monitoring in data collection process. As we know in module 1 competence of 2 skilled technical and cultural.

It is very important to understand data users, it help you to design your data collection according their needs.

It is an interesting for a researcher to his or he user. with this you will be saving yourself from lot of ethical violations.

Why design an examination for students you know nothing about? It is a good and ethical practice to know and understand who your despondence are before designing any tool.

This part should never be taken for granted

Having a thorough understanding of your participants is integral to being able to collect useable data. Be sure to build this into your project plan.

Modulo 2 discussion

I think in a data collection and designing, certain factors need to be consider to reduce mistakes.

It's highly recommend to know the kind of people you are directly dealing with in spite of their religion, food, culture and altitude.

It is very important for the project to be able to understand their participants in order to make informed decisions on how the program will be implemented and how it may eventually affect those it is intended to assist.

Understanding participants that would be involved in data collection is essential to help design the data tools to utilize and the data collection method to implement

When collecting data it is vital to:

1. understand and know the group of participants that you will be working with before choosing tools to be used to collect data.
   Consider the following:

• Language spoken by participants (does not help to hold English spoken interviews with people that do not speak English)

• The level of language proficiency - do they fully understand the language being used

• Literacy rate - handing out written surveys to people that cannot read or write will not help

• Consider what is culturally acceptable in a community as a method of communication. Some communities do not allow males and females to engage or hold a discussion in private and would need chaperones to be present

• Do the participants have access to technology (smart phones, computers, email, sms) and what is their level of proficiency using these technologies

2. Continually observe and monitor participants to be able to rectify any issues that arise and were not anticipated before.
   These issues could result in inaccurate data being gathered therefore very important to change or modify data collection tools to prevent this.

yes there are discouraging pattern. in my country there are difficulty in collecting accurate data due lack of understanding of participants. due to the low literacy rate in the sub-region most times we have many misspelled names, inaccurate ages as most people cannot even communicate properly because a good number cannot speak or understand English..

Understanding your participant it very important because it help to known the behavior and attitude of your persons your going to deal with. Also it is very critical to know their language and literacy level which will avoid many problems that may arise in the process of gathering data. observing your audience it very important because verify the accuracy of the data your collecting.

The issues arising is compentency, there is a need to observe all the necessary protocols to avoid incompetent and dishonesty.

Yes, right tool need to be chosen to avoid data limitations.

Broad consultations needs to be established by consulting the necessary stakeholders.

it is essential to continually observe and verify, data is not static and need to be improve.

What if you do have all the sufiscated but along the line something pops up the project didn't go per said ?

In cooperate environment, uncertainty always bond to happen.

In this case what is the way forward?

Before the project begins, one should be able to understand the ways in which data can be collected in that area

Collection of data should be of high quality for beneficiaries to understand

revising the procedure and inform the stakeholders in time so that they can give you some time to catch up

the data which is well presented and managed, it will remain raw for good

it is important to understand your participants eg their educational level and cultural views etc and also monitor data to see if unexpected issues arise

It is important for the M & E team to understand the users. The cultural, education and demographic characteristics of people matter in data collection. Data collection tools developed in one cultural context cannot always be imported into different context.

The M & E team should consider the following when learning about the group of people from whom they will be gathering data:

1. Languages the people speak
   2)Average level of language proficiency
2. Literacy rate for this population
3. Culturally preferred method of communication
   5)Accessibility to technologies

It is important to understand our users because this will help provide a better picture.

it is important because it will give the stakeholders an opportunity to give feedback and it will also be transparent to the stakeholders.

For the data collection process, it is quite important to have a good understanding of the people (such as their culture, tradition and gender sensitivity etc) from whom we will be collecting data and information before the data collection takes place. This will properly inform the evaluation team to choose appropriate data collection tools. Without being informed of the target group well, there could be a risk of choosing the right data collection which could largely influence the level of accuracy of the data to be obtained. In addition to this, the evaluation team also needs to be vigilant during the data collection process of there are any issues/challenges arising with the process affecting the process it self or potentially affacting the level of data accuracy.

We need to be conversantbwith the language from whom you going to collect the data from,literacy rate,language people can read and write depending on the method of collecting data. Lastly we need to be equipped with the culturally preferred method of communication skilled

In carrying out any project, it is important to ensure that the users get accurate and timely data that will help them in decision making processes. Therefore, there is a need to get people with actual answers to the questions you would be seeking to answer involved asyou do your stakeholder mapping. In doing this, you would also need to get others that may try to stall the process, meaning, those that may be influential in the project location involved to aviod unexpected barriers and bottlenecks to the project implementation.

Having a clear understanding of participants really help with data integrity. In northern Nigeria we noticed the best way to program for girls is to speak to girls themselves through peer to peer research. So young girls must be trained to collect data from young girls to get accurate information.

I never knew that these information are to be carefully considered while designing the survey questionnaires. Now i can make and design better questions with reduced challenges for next data collection process. Thanks Philanthrophy University for this important message on designing the data collection questions.

It was quiet good

Researching and investigating about a population before carrying out research is fundamental so as to find out more information about the group of people that will be involved in the project because the data collected from them must be accurate and reliable for all users involved. This helps in adopting the right and correct tools for data collection because you know the population and their cultural backgrounds and literacy level.

Data collection choice
One you must know stakeholders mapping. What and how the data is collected. So that the data can be well represented.
Managing stakeholders expectection. Data must ba unrealistic.

In the war crisis, data collection is limited by conflict parties therefor the organization needs to use several methods and exchange its observation and learned lesson with other organizations to increase its chance to collect the required data.

Data collection is one of the essential aspects of monitoring and evaluating project implementation. Data are the main variables that stakeholders use to determine the success or failure of a given project. As a result, all stakeholders for a project are interested in data. With this high demand for data, the M&E team has to ensure that stakeholders in the project assess data. However, it is efficient and effective to use a stakeholder map to plan data flow with stakeholders based on their role and interest in the data.

This topic fantastic topic where before data collecting it is important to identify first who your stakeholder what they expect etc.... then it is important under stand your participants before deciding your data collection method

Quality can be defined from someone understanding the group of people you are working with ,this will enable you acquire the best results since all will be done through understanding .Different gaps can be noted and filled through the knowledge hence promoting quality.

You need to carefully understand your participants before designing a data collection tool.

it is important to understand your participants before choosing a data collection method

Data manipulation in a crucial factor in terms of field surveys. It's really a hard process to ensure data accuracy level to 95% specially for socio-economic survey.

It's really important to understand the users because it directly impacts project sustainability. For instance, i observed that in one of the river communities we were implementing one of our projects, a donor constructed public toilets for the community members in order to have a sanitary environment but to my surprise, the constructed public toilets were destroyed within 10 months after commission. from my findings through personal interview with beneficiaries they said that one of the reason for destroying the toilets was that since the construction of the toilet, they have not be getting big fishes and they are stressed before getting fishes in their river because once their feces is thrown into the river, it attract fishes to their area etc.

social cultural issues are common in some communities which make data collection a problem like other families dont disclose how many children they have and others dont disclose how much they earn per month

the survey should suit the users, not the users should suit the survey. within this philosophy we should pay attention when we choose users for our research. the more we know about our users, the more we design and implement an effective research. who they are, what are their needs, are there any cultural , psychological,or social behaviors that you need to know before you start?

It is essential to continually observe and verify the accuracy of your data collection process. What issues are arising? Are there missing data or discouraging patterns? How can you change your tool to prevent these issues?
observation is key and also do well to understand the target population so you can tailor your tool approriately to collect accurate and useful data. You may have to discuss with members of the target population, local experts and program staff to address this concerns.

I want to know more about understanding your users.

In case where date of birth is hard to get, event calendar can be used for the period around the date of birth. This I have used and obtained much valid information from the communities.

Understanding and observing your participants is a crucial stage in M&E.

It is really important to understand the norms and cultural settings of the population that you are going to collect your data from

Getting to know the actual results that your users expect and require will help you steer the project in the right directions which you will get specific results that are anticipated by the users. This will help in their satisfaction about the project

it is very important to know the context of the area where you are going to implement your project and the participants that you are going to work with

we need to understand our users for effective data collection. Understanding user will help us to know the right method of data collection to use and it will help us collect relevant and unbiased data.

i think that's Feature phones? Smartphones?
is very large

i think that's Feature phones? Smartphones?
is very large

I understand that before one chooses one of the the questions above, a number of questions should be asked and answered.

I understand that before one chooses one of the the questions above, a number of questions should be asked and answered.

The baseline to collect the data would be
Understand the nature of people and observe them carefully and then design the data collection tool for use

The correct users understanding is very important in the data collection step for a reliable and adaptative M&E strategy. In fact, it's almost impossible to attribute consistant added-value to collected data neither relevant useness, if targeted stakeholders for or by whom raw data or final results will be usefull have not been taken into account by their real needs assessment. This step is therefore fundamental and mandatory for the whole M&E process design and planing.

It is very vital for us to understand and know the people we are getting our data from. People differ according to culture and the area in which they are.

practical discussion. This will help me a lot

In data collection, there are problems that occur, when we are in front of a survey, you ask it, for example, what is your address, what is your telephone number and what is your age, what is your address, what is your telephone number and what is your age? is what you will gain by doing that means a life of prostitution.
I think it depends on the study to another, but in this case, we will have no choice, maybe this study requires that these questions be asked and that is perhaps the indicator of the project. . But we must also take into account the design of the question, we can also change the way of asking this question so as to avoid the refusal of the respondent in relation to this question.

upstream we must first understand the participants, means who are the people we will target in relation to this study, who will be able to answer these questions. this is the essential before designing the questionnaires we take a look at this

It is important that researchers understand the users because of the limitations that each of the users from different places and background has. Identifying these differences can help the researchers collect data that are more accurate.

This is why is important to train and make sure the data collectors understood what is expected of them because once the data collector misinterprets the project, the participants will give wrong data.

Once you notice an error in data, careful check the source and make corrections where necessary

It is really important to create and design data collection tools with the users in mind. Otherwise, users may end up guessing the answers to the questions.

Gotten some insight

Gotten some insight

Gotten some insight and can attempt data collection now.

Gotten some insight and can attempt data collection now.

Gotten some insight and can attempt data collection