The Microdemographic Community-Study Approach

Citation: Axinn, William G., Fricke, Thoman, Thornton, Arland The Microdemographic Community-Study Approach.
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): The Microdemographic Community-Study Approach
Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

This article discusses a data-collection technique called the microdemographic community-study approach. These authors use this technique to study social change, family process, and fertility among the ethnic group the Tamang in Nepal. This method integrates ethnographic methods with traditional survey methods in order to reduce coverage errors, nonresponse errors, and measurement errors arising from the interviewer, questionnaire, and the respondent. Two communities that were inhabited by the Tamang ethnic group in Nepal were chosen. On was chosen as a representative of subsistence-oriented society, while the other was chosen as a representative of the monetized end of the economic continuum. Two survey instruments were used: a household census and family genealogy and an individual questionnaire. The investigators who designed the questionnaire spoke the language of the study population fluently and had lived with the study population and related communities prior to the study. Interviewers were recruited in Nepal from research organizations, university campuses, and Tamang communities. Interviewers were extensively trained prior to entering the field and more interviewers than were necessary were hired, so that it would be possible to fire interviewers who did not perform adequately during the data collection process. The researchers lived in the communities that were being studied as the data collection proceeded. Extensive interviews were conducted with selected informants. Every completed interview was read by at least one of the researchers the night that it was completed, which, combined from information obtained through the more extensive interviews, allowed the researchers to identify problems with interviewers or the questionnaire itself. This allowed revisions of the survey to be made during the data collection process based on information gathered during the data collection process. It also allowed the researchers to identify missing or contradictory data and resolve these issues. Collection of the household rosters and family genealogies allowed the researchers to more accurately locate individuals and determine when they had missed anyone. Because the researchers lived in the community that was being studied, respondents generally were happy to be interviewed and many sought out the researchers to make sure that they would be included. The researchers were also able to keep a close watch on the interviewers and continue training them throughout the interview process. All of these things led to low rates of nonresponse, nonobservation, and reporting errors. It allowed identification of problems with the survey and the identification of local differences that were important for understanding family formation in each community. These idiosyncratic differences would not have been identified on a standard survey, but they provide the researchers with greater explanatory power in their models.