Qualitative Assignment: Mixed Methods For Social Development Research

Introduction

The research assignment reviews the strategy adopted by an international non-governmental aid organization towards making contact with an antisocial Indonesian community known as the Acehnese. The essay explores the strategies adopted by INAO to collect research project data and whether they were effective or could have been improved (Forell, 2014).

Perceiving the research objective and its exploitation

The research paper associated with the Acehnese portrays a community who maintain a negative outlook towards the outside world. It is clear the community lacks positive social relationships within its national boundaries as well as towards international communities thus portraying hostile individuals who can be termed as racial. This has resulted in aid and foreign aid organization needing to depend on a handful of representatives from within the community which further makes the community vulnerable to hierarchal community exploitation. Reviewing the information offered on the report clearly demonstrates in-depth and good research having been performed on the social interactions and outlook of the Acehnese. It also goes on to clearly mention vulnerability the communities are likely to encounter due to failing to interact with the outside world despite needing aid and development. This mentality and limited social interaction, as well as reserved social outlook, places the entire community at risk of exploitation by a handful of community heads. They exploit the situation by mediating communication, interaction, and negotiations with the local government and international organization on behalf of the community.

Evaluating the research project methodological approach to data collection

The method adopted by the research project heads with regard to data collection fails to meet the required parameters which would ensure social wellbeing. This is due to the data collection approach adopted by the research project heads and the government has failed to adapt qualitative research approaches in which the research heads visit ground zero to assess and collect information from the local communities. Instead, they are adopting a quantitative research approach by placing mediators between the affected communities and the researchers which is likely to result in encouraging serious discrepancies while reporting the situation on the ground. This approach may be beneficial to the research teams when considering the Acehnese social hostilities with the outside world thus enhancing research analyst safety. But at the same time, it encourages mediators to exploit the situation and even take advantage of both the community and researchers. Considering the Acehnese have experienced a huge natural disaster and likely to be in distress, it would have been more advisable for a small group of the research analysts from the international non-governmental aid organization to visit the affected region to collect data. Having been severely affected by the Tsunami, the Acehnese community would most likely be in distress and willing to communicate with all communities visiting the region to assist. Research studies show isolated communities are most likely to discard social differences during times of unexpected and severe disasters, which open up the opportunity for the Acehnese to be approach by outsiders willing to assist them (Wallensteen, 2015). This would help change their outlook of the outside world which would help benefit the communities and region as a whole.

My approach and views towards the strategies used on the research project

If I was heading the research project, I would have not adopted this approach towards data collection as this defies project research mythologies and guidelines and is considered to be an ineffective research strategy. I would have headed a research project with the intention of a collection of both qualitative and quantitative research data from the affected Acehnese communities (Hussein, 2015). Being a research project aimed at determining the extent to which the Acehnese community has been affected by the natural disaster, it is essential to establish contact directly with the community to determine their ground situation. International non-governmental aid organizations are not influenced by conflict and act as a mediator between the affected communities and outside world. Keeping in mind the community is anti-social towards the outside world; the team would be instructed to abstain from any kind of negative sentiment or prejudice towards the community members and their social, religious and cultural practices. The research team would only focus on offering assistance to the affected communities while collecting data and information on the affected communities without disrupting or arousing their attention. Relationships between any two conflicting communities remain tense but will relax during times of disaster thus giving the outside world the opportunity to visit the affected communities and offer solitude during times of hardship. This helps build trust among the affected communities and younger generation and moves relations one step ahead towards building positive social relationships between conflicting and rival communities.

Conclusion

Successful project research requires for the research analysts to be directly involved at ground level so as to report facts. Despite the Acehnese having attracted a fearsome reputation for being hostile towards outsiders, the researchers should have made an attempt to reach out to the community directly. This would have helped demonstrate the outside community’s willingness to help the Acehnese during times of hardship and help build good relations among the Acehnese and outside world. At the same time it would have given the research team an opportunity to collect credible data using qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies.

Bibliography

Forell, J.H.&.S., 2014. Who is rebuilding Aceh? Tensions between groups of staff in an NGO. Tandf Online, 25(1), pp.57-70. https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2015.983045.

Hussein, A., 2015. The use of Triangulation in Social Sciences Research: Can qualitative and quantitative methods be combined? Journal of comparative social work, 4(1).

Wallensteen, P., 2015. Understanding conflict resolution. Sage.