Question: Is it better to measure your impact via surveys among
your target group or by conducting a hand-full of in-depth interviews?
Answer: Both (err… trick question)!
There are multiple ways to measure your
impact and relying on just one data source or type of data can prevent you from
seeing all that you’ve accomplished. For example, survey data can give you a
good sense of your impact on the aggregate-level. But if you only use survey
data, then you may not be capturing exactly how your efforts have impacted
individuals. On the other hand, in-depth interviews can provide you with more
detailed contextual information that might help to explain what your data is
telling you. But it can be hard (and often not feasible) to get the resources
necessary to interview enough people to capture your effect on the
aggregate-level.
That’s why we often draw on both
quantitative data (e.g., how much, how many, how often, etc.) and qualitative data (e.g., more descriptive)
whenever possible. Quantitative data can be really effective in telling you
what has happened as a result of your efforts, while qualitative data can provide
you with richer information providing deeper insights indicating why or how something happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment