field Archives - BRAC Institute of Governance and Development

Photo: Smiling schoolgirl in a yard

Upon joining the Gender and Social Transformation team at BIGD in June 2019, I have been engaged in some exciting qualitative research projects. The team is well-known within BIGD and also among international researchers for its expertise in qualitative research. As a member of such an expert group of researchers, I had to match the intensity of the job of conducting rigorous fieldwork in various projects.

Qualitative research is always challenging as the researcher needs to remain sensitive and continuously aware of all the questions which require answers to understand the context of a particular problem. Keeping all these in mind, we were conducting a research project called ‘New forms of adolescent voice and agency through the use of mobile phones and ICT’ with four schools from different socio-economic backgrounds in Dhaka and Cumilla. We aimed to explore whether mobile and internet usage is enabling adolescents to overcome barriers, and how it increases their voice and agency, with a keen eye on whether this contributed to building youth leadership.

This research is part of a nine-year (2015-2024) longitudinal research and evaluation study titled ‘Gender and Adolescent: Global Evidence (GAGE)’. GAGE is generating evidence on ‘what works’ to enable adolescent girls and boys to emerge from poverty and fast-track social change for young people, their families and communities.

The fieldwork of the project was divided into three categories — English medium school which represents higher class society, Bangla medium school representing the middle class and lower middle class and slum school representing the lower class. Taking Dhaka as the urban area, we conducted research in a Bangla Medium school, an English medium school and a Government high school, each representing a particular class as mentioned earlier, while another school, a Government high school from Cumilla, was added to the study to represent the rural lower-middle class.

The qualitative methodology of the research included focused group discussions and in-depth interviews of class eight students, their parents and teachers as I exclusively conducted FGDs and IDIs of boys and their parents. Upon completion of these activities in Slum school and Bangla medium schools from Dhaka and Cumilla, we struggled to find a suitable English medium school to wrap up the field work. Our senior team members picked out several English medium schools, most of which could not give us proper responses. However, we finally drew a positive response from Sir John Wilson School situated in the outskirts of Basundhara residential area. We went there and several team members went to meet the principal. Tensions within the team ran high after the principal mentioned undesirable incidents involving internet usage, such as cyber bullying and harassments, among the students of the school had made authorities cautious regarding the matter. We were worried whether the students would openly discuss these issues with us as conducting research in such English medium schools has been rare for us.

Photo: Students at Sir John Wilson School

We pondered over how we should deal with students from this particular class as communicating with them could be a challenge due to their verbal expressions and the issue mentioned earlier. Despite all these worries, I remained confident and enthusiastic because our topics were based on teenagers and the internet – both I am quite comfortable with. I felt my understanding of these areas would give me common ground with the particular respondents and allow me to draw enthusiasm from them as well. In separate meetings held by the team for this particular issue, I assured everyone that things would go smoothly.

After arriving at the school with the team under pressure, I began conversing with the boys and surprisingly drew spontaneous responses. My approach to the discussion was built around the universal usage of the internet and empathising with the student about web surfing to guide them into a common platform to make them open up without hesitation. As the FGD progressed we spoke following the guidelines. I tried to keep the mood light and had fun sharing secrets like flirting over social media and playing games etc. They brought up the issues of cyberbullying, sexual harassment and how the internet was becoming a place which regulated the mood of the adolescents often getting them depressed overreactions to certain posts and drawing comparisons with others they have contact with over the internet. I was deeply moved by their insights into social issues like garment labour movements, student movement over road accidents issues.

While speaking with them, I felt that the negatives of internet usage were highlighted overwhelmingly more than the perks. It is undeniable that the negative effects of using the internet during adolescence could bring great harm, yet the utility of the brighter side of the internet, like the negative sides, cannot be downplayed. With the internet’s unlimited resources for free, it assists them greatly in their studies, growing good hobbies and learning new skills, i.e. learning programming languages, developing games/apps, creating music and sharing them with a wider audience to appreciate or improve upon. It is nonetheless the quickest way to remain in touch with friends and families defying the distances. Adolescents expressed their worries about the risk of exposing themselves to strangers which sometimes lead them to getting blackmailed over life-threatening issues. Additionally, cyberbullying leads them into unhealthy relationships with friends, peers and forces them to take fatal steps like committing suicide which is a matter of grave concerns in the society.

After all the worries we had, it felt great to conduct productive FGDs and getting to know their activities and opinions about daily internet use was worthwhile as they expressed their opinions thoughtfully. It was the most enjoyable part of being a qualitative researcher as I felt privileged to have a job where I could connect with others in deep conversations and get to know their thoughts in the light of a particular context. And a well-versed conversation always helps to make the research compact and strong. Speaking to the respondents without any regard for their social class and status and in a passionate and curious mindset to understand the research problem can surely bring success in fieldwork.

Saklain Al Mamun is a Research Associate in the Gender and Social Transformation (CGST) cluster at BIGD.

“Stories from the Field” is an ongoing series where members of the BIGD team reflect on their experiences conducting research on-ground.

Photo 1 by Ricci Coughlan / DFID, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Photo 2 by Pragyna Mahpara

Zeeshan Ashraf, Research Associate at the Research, Policy and Governance (RPG) team at BIGD, reflects on his experience in exploring qualitative research methods first-hand, in the remote villages of Sylhet.

I have been working as a Research Associate at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) for over two years. Throughout my tenure at BIGD, I have been primarily involved with quantitative research. Although qualitative research is at the core of various programs of BRAC, it remained uncharted territory for me. Earlier this year, thanks to the initiative taken by Mehnaz Rabbani, Program Lead, Research, Policy and Governance (RPG) – I was able to participate in a three-day field visit along with my team members from the RPG team, to villages located in Sylhet district. This visit enabled me to experience the undertakings of qualitative research first-hand.

On the first day, we were assigned to conduct a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on the theme of digital literacy, which assesses an individual’s ability to use digital devices, such as computers and smartphones. We decided to organise the FGD in a village named Chanpur, which is located near Ratargul. Luckily, the people from the village were friendly and approachable and agreed to participate in our FGD. We also met some female teachers, who agreed as well.

Participants mentioned that every household had at least one smartphone. In fact, ownership of a smartphone was not confined to any particular socio-economic group. They also mentioned that they used smartphones primarily for browsing Facebook, watching videos, playing mobile games, and for monetary transactions. During the course of the FGD, we noticed that only a few individuals were participating in the discussion, while the majority of the attendees remained tight-lipped. Moreover, the female teachers, who previously seemed quite enthusiastic about participating in the FGD, were reticent in front of the male participants in the discussion. The lack of involvement of the female teachers made us realize that FGDs should be organized separately for male and female participants. We also felt that we would have been able to obtain a more holistic picture of the village residents’ perception of digital literacy if all individuals had participated in the discussion.

We decided to conduct another FGD on the following day at a village named Jointapur, hoping that we would perform better as we had acquired some hands-on experience. We felt that the residents of this village were slightly conservative. Conversations with some of the local people substantiated our initial hunch. We came to know that none of the households possessed a television as they were instructed to eschew watching television by a late Wali. In fact, if television were to be found in a house, the residents of the village would storm in and destroy that television! As we walked around, trying to gather more participants, the residents gazed at us with suspicion. In fact, a resident enquired us about our purpose for visiting the village in a rather confrontational way. Another resident informed us that the villagers were suspicious of visitors, as some non-local individuals had committed anti-social activities in the past. Sensing the uncooperative attitude of the residents, we realized that we would be unable to conduct the FGD within the stipulated time. Hence, we left the village immediately. This particular experience made me realize that there were still areas in Bangladesh where the residents carried forward a rather conservative mindset, despite the wave of socio-economic progress in the country.

On the last day of the field visit, we decided to try our hand at another key tool of qualitative research – Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). We conducted the PRA in a village named Doloipara. The two primary components of PRA are – “wealth ranking” and “problem ranking”. Under the purview of wealth ranking, all households of a village are classified into different income groups. The participants of the PRA informed us that the households of Doloipara were clustered into four income groups- i) high-income, ii) middle-income, iii) low-income and iv) extremely low-income (Miskin). In order to undertake the task of problem ranking, we asked the residents to identify the most pressing problems of their village in a sequential way. The residents identified inadequate levels of drinking water as the most critical problem of Doloipara. The dismal state of roads, lack of electric poles and absence of proper drainage system were also identified as major problems. The residents mentioned that the aforementioned problems required immediate attention as these problems affected the daily lives of the people to a significant degree.

This PRA was the last assignment of the field visit. Following the conclusion of the PRA, we returned to the hotel to collect our luggage and departed for the bus station to board a Dhaka-bound bus. En route to Dhaka, I reflected on my experiences in this short yet insightful field visit. I realized that each village has its own culture and customs. Interacting with the residents of these villages can expand a researcher’s horizon of thinking, having encountered various perspectives from various individuals. Field visits can also teach a researcher the techniques of approaching and communicating with people from different walks of life. But most importantly, a field visit can open doors for a researcher to witness the state of a multitude of issues at the local level. All in all, I believe researchers should go out to the field, if for nothing else than for the sake of their personal growth and development.

“Stories from the Field” is an ongoing series where members of the BIGD team reflect on their experiences conducting research on-ground.

Photo: The RPG Team in discussion with local residents of Chanpur

Tag: field

Stories from the Field: Venturing the Unchartered Territory of Qualitative Research