Nigeria/MEMS Brown Bag Presentation:

Elicitation Techniques

May 31,2006

What is an elicitation technique?

e-li-cit (v): to ‘draw out’ or “bring forth” latent, or unexpressed information.

An elicitation technique elicits local, or indigenous knowledge, from the natives’ point of view.

Definition: Indigenous Knowledge

Knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. It is the basis for local decision-making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural resource management, and host of other activities in rural communities (Warren 1991)

Indigenous knowledge is an integral part of the culture and history of a local community. We need to learn more from local communities to enrich the development process (James D. Wolfensohn President, World Bank).

Elicitation techniques reveal cultural domains

Definition: A cultural domain is an organized set of words and/or concepts that refer to asingle conceptual sphere – or ‘things that go together’.

Examples: wealthillness symptomsemotionsanimalscolors

All these concepts are grounded in physical reality, but people in different cultures interpret physical reality differently (Bernard 2000)

Often, evaluators assume they know what and how people think . . . and they are wrong!

We want to get an ‘insiders’ view, to see the world as others see it

program beneficiaries

community members

program implementers

Service providers

Why should we understand local knowledge?

Elicitation techniques are used for:

Formative research/program planning Types of health problems in village

Process evaluations/trouble shooting Malaria symptoms

Outcome/Impact evaluations Ranking health problems (best to worst)

Rapid Assessments Social mapping of health clinic locations

Types of elicitation methods:

Freelists

Pilesorts

Ranking

Frame elicitations

Triad tests

Paired comparisons

Freelists

Elicit elements of a cultural domain

Show the way groups of people think about the world

Tell the ideas, concepts people have in common

Identify what elements ‘go with’ each other

Freelist vs. Survey Questions:

Type of question Example Objective

Freelist question What kind of illnesses are there?

Learn about the domain (eg. Develop list of named illnesses

Survey open-ended question

What illnesses have you had?

Learn about the respondent (eg. Obtain patient history

Good freelist questions elicit information ‘outside’ the respondent

Survey questions elicit information about the respondent

Freelist Examples:

What kinds of tree are there?

Name all the home remedies you can think of.

What are the different Nigerian ethnic groups?

Name all the places people go for the treatment of illnesses.

Name all the ways people get information about contraceptives

Analyzing freelist data:Step 1

Create a table in Excel or Word Make a column for each

person (number) List terms in rows

1 Sedan2 Jeep3 Toyota4 Peugeot5 Volkswagen6 American7 SUV8 Cadillac

Name the different kinds of cars

Analyzing Freelist data: Step 2

From the respondent lists enter the term order number in the corresponding box

Respondents

Terms 1 2 3 4

Sedan 2 1 17 3

Jeep 9 3 14 13

Toyota 1 4 3 2

Peugeot 7 6 1 8

Volkswagen

12 9 6 11

American 19 20 18 19

SUV 16 5 9 8

Cadillac 20 10 5 16

Analyzing freelist data:Step 3

Respondents

Terms 1 2 3 4 Ranking Freq

Sedan 2 1 17 3 (23) 2.88 82%

Jeep 9 3 14 13 (39) 4.86 75%

Toyota 1 4 3 2 (10) 1.25 98%

Peugeot 7 6 1 8 (22) 2.75 90%

Volkswagen 12 9 6 11 (38) 4.75 79%

American 19 20 18 19 (66) 8.25 50%

SUV 16 5 9 8 (38) 4.75 79%

Cadillac 20 10 5 16 (51) 6.38 68%

Pilesorts

Elicit judgments of similarity among items in a cultural domain, and the attributes that distinguish between items

Shows ‘what goes with what’

Creates a cultural map of local knowledge

Collecting Pilesort data

Start with a freelisting exercise to obtain terms:

What different animals are there?

Write the terms on cards: on one side, write the term and on the reverse side,

write the corresponding number

dog 1

Pilesorting

Ask participants to place the cards in piles – any way they want.

Rule: can’t put all the cards in one pile or each card in a separate pile

Pilesort analysis

On pilesort form, write the number of each card

Cards: Animals

Pile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 3 1 2

2 3 2 4 1

3 1

4 2 1

5

6

7

8

9

10

Pilesort analysis: Anthropac

Results of a pilesort of animals

Pilesort applications:

Formative research

Name the different types of drugs people use here

Name all the different terms for sexually transmitted diseases

Program planning

What ways do people get information about contraceptives?

Where do people go to get treatment for sexually transmitted diseases?

Evaluation

Name all the terms you can think of for the word ‘governance’

What kinds of leaders are there in this community?