Author: gereresearch

Remote data collection is a type of data collection method that does not require in-person contact with people. Through remote data collection, enumerators can collect data by voice calls, video calls, or via online surveys. The world has increasingly embraced the usage of modern technology to facilitate international collaboration and the COVID-19 pandemic has further shifted in-person ways of working to remote ways. In this blog, I will reflect on my experience of collecting data remotely on the Voices of Refugee Youth (VoRY) project. I will share three points that I have learned and applied during remote data collection: the overall approach, necessary preparation, and effective communication.

Firstly, the process of conducting data collection in person was totally different from remote data collection. In-person data collection required me to meet physically with participants at school, and this made it easier to arrange meetings with participants who tended to respect the scheduled time. The remote data collection, however, required me to be more flexible so I could get my work done. During remote data collection, every participant would give me their preferred time and I needed to be flexible to accommodate the preferred time for that participant. This is different from physical data collection where you meet with a variety of participants in their locations and once one is not available, you work with who is available while waiting for others’ availability.

Secondly, I needed a sense of preparation. Setting up everything needed to get my work done was a high priority, so I would check the internet connection and power in my phone 30 minutes before the interview. This thorough preparation ahead of my interviews not only helped me to work smoothly with participants, but also gave me the time and opportunity to try and find an alternative when there happened to be a technical issue.

Thirdly, being an effective communicator led me to complete data collection successfully. Communicating to research participants consistently not only helped me to do the work better, but also made sure that everyone involved in the work was informed through the data collection process and felt involved and respected, and the effectiveness in communication made the process smoother.

To conclude, I have enjoyed working on data collection remotely. However, I also found it difficult to set up meetings with participants who had a work commitment and struggled to set specific times for the meeting. The advice that I can provide to future researchers planning to work on remote data collection is to be open-minded, have effective preparation, and have clear communication as the key to the successful completion of remote data collection work.

Based on my personal experience on the Voices of Refugee Youth (VoRY) project, I find that it is very interesting and often more fruitful to involve researchers who are young people in research, especially when the target population is also a younger generation.

After being selected by Jigsaw to be one of the youth researchers in the VoRY project in Rwanda in 2019, I was trained and equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to start my journey as a youth researcher. I started data collection in early 2020, surveying and interviewing young refugee students who were in their final year at a secondary school in Mahama refugee camp to understand the impact of post-primary education in emergencies. This experience has made me realise that using youth researchers to conduct research among young people via a participatory framework has many benefits for the quality of the research, the participants and the youth researchers themselves.

Regarding the benefits of a youth centered approach for the quality of the research, I witnessed that this enabled more objective, valid and credible information to be obtained. Respondents were clearly more comfortable talking with me instead of a more senior researcher.

Additionally, my involvement in this research has also provided the participants a role model, and potentially boosted their future aspiration and performance in class. While conducting a survey with a refugee student in Mahama camp, I asked him about his motivation for continuing into secondary school, and he replied: “you know that we know each other here in the camp. A few years ago, I used to see you going to school like me, but now you are surveying me as a youth researcher. This pushes me to work hard in class and to continue with my secondary studies, even university, in order to contribute to changing the world as you are doing now.” He also mentioned that he had seen many others excel after school, helping him to know that refugee education is not “wasting time” as some might believe.

I, as one of the youth researchers, have benefited and I am still benefiting from the youth-centred research approach: I learned many skills on how to collect, analyse, and interpret data, how electronic devices and platforms are used during data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Being able to lead data collection was also a great opportunity for me as I gained valuable research experience and a sense of ownership of the research process.

Based on my experience so far, I recommend that we should involve young people more in refugee education research by mobilising them to learn from available education research-opportunities and to prove that they can contribute to the positive changes happening in the world.

In brief, I believe that working with young people in research is beneficial and helpful for youth researchers, participants and the quality of the research itself.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people across many sectors have had to shift to conducting various activities remotely. For us youth researchers in Rwanda, we have had to conduct data collection for the Voices of Refugee Youth project remotely and experience both the positive and negative effects of the pandemic on research. In this blog, we will outline our experience of remote data collection for the second data point (DP2) of the research study.

One thing we enjoyed the most about collecting data remotely was the ease of setting up appointments with the participants. We found it easier to arrange a time for a phone call than arranging a meet-up in-person at a particular location. This also meant that we could even talk in the evenings depending on the participants’ availability.

Moreover, remote data collection enabled us to access participants who were not located in Kigali for various reasons. We were able to talk to those who got jobs outside Kigali, and those who returned home after graduation. In addition, it took less time overall in comparison with face-to-face data collection.

Although collecting data remotely was helpful, it also had negative sides. The most difficult thing was ensuring the participants would answer our phone calls. Participants could refuse to pick up the phone call even after our initial contact and agreement on a time for a call because they were not interested anymore. It is often the case that we heard from their friends that they had changed their minds and were no longer interested in participating in the data collection. After calling their phones three times to ensure that they had refused to participate, we had to fill out forms saying that the participants were not interested in the data collection.

Another issue was that it was so hard for us to know if the participant was honest or not. This is because when conducting a face-to-face data collection, you can make better judgement based on the participant’s facial expressions that he/she is honest in what they are saying and this was not possible in a phone interview.

Moreover, it was very difficult to arrange focus group discussions because participants had different schedules. This made scheduling tricky because we had to make sure that we met all participants at the same time. Internet quality could make things hard because we could restart a call several times.

In comparison to DP1 (the first data collection point, before Covid-19), DP2 (after Covid-19) felt like a much bigger project. Collecting data remotely was not easy because many people were less talkative during phone calls. Participants found it demanding to hear, at the end of a survey, that there was going to be another key informant interview or focus group discussion. Some of them helped us with the surveys and refused to continue in other parts of DP2.

A piece of advice that we would like to give to anyone else doing remote data collection is that they have to be flexible and patient. This will help the most when the participants do not seem to be interested in the data collection. It takes time to make participants at ease so that they feel comfortable to respond to the questions. While it is difficult to avoid some of the other aspects of remote data collection, we found that being flexible and patient was an important way to make a success of this approach.

The Voice of Youth Researchers project
Since the beginning of 2020, Jigsaw, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Refugee Education UK (then named Refugee Support Network, RSN), started “Voices of Refugee Youth: The Impact of Post-Primary Education in Emergency” in Rwanda (and Pakistan). The Voices of Refugee Youth (VoRY) project aims to amplify youth refugees’ voices to understand their perspectives on the education journeys they are on as refugees.

As part of the VoRY project, Jigsaw, together with UNHCR and REUK, has been working with young refugees in conducting research, and this is how our training as Youth Researchers started and we have received training in four stages over the years.

Recap of Unit 1 and Unit 2
I have had the privilege to be amongst other Youth Researchers as I followed the training in person for Unit 1 and conducted interviews with university students who were refugees. For the next two units (Units 2 and 3), we had to do the training online because of the disruptions caused by COVID-19.

Unit 1 focused on quantitative data collection where we learned in training on what quantitative data is, how to collect it, what tools to use and how to design them. We then collected data from student refugees. Unit 2 focused on qualitative data collection, where we learned how to practise Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussions and transcribing. After training, we got to practise what we learned with the respondents.

Learnings and personal highlights from Unit 3
In this article, I want to share my highlights from Unit 3 on the research methods training we received. As mentioned above, from Unit 2 onwards, we completed the training virtually because of COVID-19. It was hard but we persisted and successfully completed Unit 2 training, which then enabled us to finish Unit 3 training on data analysis.

Unit 3 consisted of data analysis focused on analysing both qualitative and quantitative data, writing case studies and visualising data.

Data analysis consists of two phases. First, collected data needs to be prepared: this phase requires the researcher to clean and validate the data, check for informed consent and anonymise the data. The second phase focuses on analysing the data itself. For a good data analysis, there are some principles to follow such as being impartial, being thorough and rigorous and using critical/analytical thinking.

Case studies are used to explore the challenges faced by refugee young people, articulating the successes that happen in their life and the life of their closest friends and relatives as a result of their education and employment journey.

Data visualisation refers to the graphical representation of information and data. Its benefit is to make the data more understandable to the readers. An effective visualisation also requires different phases including cleaning complete data, picking the right type of visualisation to use, being concise and avoiding the use of too many colours.

In summary, Unit 3 was very interesting and also a little bit hard. There were so many new things to learn which seemed difficult and the fact that the learning happened virtually made it more difficult.

However, the practice and the explanation of our trainers helped us to understand more about the unit. During the training, I enjoyed learning about coding and interpreting: it was new to me and before I thought it was hard, but after learning and following the instructions it became easy. And now, months after the training, I still remember how to do it. Also it was the most useful for me because I now use these skills a lot.

The whole unit was interesting because it was all new to me. But the most interesting was the practice of writing a case study.

Personal highlights from Unit 4
Several months after Unit 3, we did the training of Unit 4 which consisted of 2 phases: the online training where we studied through modules and the in person training where we went through the module with our trainers.

Unit 4 covered 3 main components:
● Research deliverables and report writing
● Research presentation
● Research and advocacy

It was all very instructive to me. The most important things I learned in this unit were how to write a research report and preparing and delivering a research presentation.

Conclusion
To conclude, I would like to thank all the Jigsaw and Refugee Education UK team who made me a Youth Researcher and taught me so many things which will help me in the life of a researcher.