data collection – Heather E. Lanthorn

Back to Basics — Trusting Whether and How The Data are Collected and Coded

This is a tangential response to the lacour and #lacourgate hubbub (with hats off to the summaries and views given here and here). While he is not implicated in all of the comments, below, I am mostly certainly indebted to Mike Frick for planting the seed of some of the ideas presented below, particularly onContinue reading “Back to Basics — Trusting Whether and How The Data are Collected and Coded”

Oops, Got Long-Winded About ‘Median Impact Narratives’

*A revised version of this post is also available here. I finally got around to reading a post that had been flagged to me awhile ago, written by Bruce Wydick. While I don’t think the general idea of taking sampling and representatives seriously is a new one, the spin of a ‘median narrative’ may beContinue reading “Oops, Got Long-Winded About ‘Median Impact Narratives’”

Center and Peripherary in Doing Development Differently

I have spent almost three weeks back in TX, which was supposed to be, in part, a time of immense productivity in front of our fireplace (yes, it is chilly here. Probably not enough to warrant a fire but still. I am sitting in front of the fireplace and paying for carbon credits to mitigateContinue reading “Center and Peripherary in Doing Development Differently”

the onion theory of communication (doing surveys)

without too much detail, i’ll just note that i spent more time in the hospital in undergrad than i would have preferred. often times, i, being highly unintelligent, would wait until things got really bad and then finally decide one night it was time to visit the ER – uncomfortable but not non-functional or incoherent.Continue reading “the onion theory of communication (doing surveys)”

back (and forward) from ‘the big push forward’ – thoughts on why evidence is political and what to do about it

i spent the beginning of the week in brighton at the ‘big push forward‘ conference, on the politics of evidence (#evpolitics) which mixed the need for venting and catharsis (about the “results agenda” and “results-based management” and “impact evaluation”) with some productive conversation, though no immediate concreteness on how the evidence from the conference would itself beContinue reading “back (and forward) from ‘the big push forward’ – thoughts on why evidence is political and what to do about it”