As I work on research to address water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) challenges in Kibera, I’ve found that a solid research design is as important as its topic. I’ve recently come across common mistakes in research design which can impede progress, all of which I’ve subsequently witnessed proven to be accurate. Dr. Carin Runciman’s research design work gave great help in shaping my research project into a rigorous and thoughtful one about Kibera. While a vague or overly ambitious research question is one that’s easy to identify early on, our initial point of advice avoids that: With questions like “How does sanitation affect health in Kibera?” it’s easy to start with big questions. However, without refining these questions I risk building a project that’s too complex to execute in practice. What we want to do rather is specify the focus (perhaps: How does access to sanitation facilities reduce waterborne disease rates in children in Kibera?) This kind of specificity can define the scope and make research easier to manage.
Another big obstacle is an over ambitious design. However, Kibera is a logistical and ethical challenge unique unto itself. It might be far too broad a project that aims to study from the WASHs in as many layers as possible, within the time and resources that I have available. What that means is instead, you can have depth, but you don’t have to sacrifice rigor — you have a focused, feasible design. By limiting (narrowing) the scope I can guarantee a realistic and ethical project. One lesson worth emphasizing from what Dr. Runciman shares in his guide is the matching between research question and the methodology you choose. So, for example, if I wanted to understand the impact of hygiene practices on health, I would require methods that will also have this focus, that’s like a survey or interview with residents. Each chosen method is justified so that each piece of my design bears meaning to answering the research question.
I also think, it’s important to not weigh out methods before completely realizing the full story of the research question. I’ve experienced how quickly it is to get stuck in how I need to do this: qualitative interviews before determining if these are the right tools for my question. This allows the design to be kept flexible by approaching the project without a predetermined method and allow the research question to guide the methodology not vice versa.
