Design and implementation issues in surveying the views of young children in ethnolinguistically diverse developing country contexts

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses issues in the development of a methodology appropriate for eliciting sound quantitative data from primary school children in the complex contexts of ethnolinguistically diverse developing countries. Although these issues often occur in field-based surveys, the large extent and compound effects of their occurrence in ethnolinguistically diverse developing countries, particularly in research with young children, means that they combine to be imperative for project viability in these contexts. At the same time, the scale of the challenges often also means that they are regarded as unsurmountable and are disregarded at the very time when the need is highest to provide sound quantitative data on which to base education policy. The paper provides a framework of these interlocking issues relating to a survey's overall approach, instruments, the sampling scheme, and implementation. This is illustrated in detail via a large-scale cross-national study carried out with children in each grade level of Years 1–6 in three Pacific Island countries of Vanuatu, Kiribati, and Solomon Islands.

KEYWORDS:

• Pacific Island countries
• ethnolinguistically diverse
• graphic elicitation
• questionnaire design
• sample survey
• primary schooling

Acknowledgements

The opinions and conclusions expressed in this paper do not represent any official views of UNICEF Pacific or any of the participating governments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term ‘developing countries' is used in this paper since this is the term used by the United Nations (officially all three countries are ‘small island developing states'). See http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2012country_class.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

This study was commissioned and funded as an independent research project by UNICEF Pacific and the governments of Vanuatu, Kiribati and Solomon Islands under Agreement No. SSA/FJIA/2010/00000043-0.