Environmental Engineering Reference
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groups (usually three to four groups) than to produce a fully ranked list. The
number of wealth groups should be decided upon by the focus group,
although it is very helpful for analysis if all the focus groups choose the same
number of wealth groups.
If there is major disagreement about the wealth rank of a household between
or within focus groups, consider using a key informant (local research assis-
tant or trusted community elder) to arbitrate for you. When households are
not known in one or more of the focus groups, you can use the independent
informant to arbitrate if the number of households involved is small, other-
wise you will need to hold another focus group. Consider whether the need
for arbitration reflects some real ambiguity about the meaning of wealth, or
lack of clarity in the procedure. If you get many ambiguous results, this is a
warning sign that the procedure is not working well.
When carrying out your household surveys, record the presence or amount of
assets that the focus groups have identified as key indicators of wealth rank.
You can use this information to validate your results (by checking that there is
indeed a correlation between the presence of assets identified as important
and wealth rank) and if the correlations are strong, as a way of inferring a
wealth rank for future respondents without repeating the focus groups.
When analysing your results first check for consistency between focus
groups in where they place households. You would expect that, with self-
determined wealth criteria, the placing of an individual household might
vary between groups, particularly at the margin. However, there should be
no systematic bias and few households should shift more than one wealth
group. If the results are consistent, you can have more confidence that the
concept of wealth ranking has been accepted by the focus groups, and that the
results are meaningful. You can then assign a wealth rank to each household,
using the median rank from the three focus groups.
Wealth ranking is a useful tool, but it doesn't always work. Some communities find
it extremely difficult to carry out exercises such as these because of their concept of
wealth. Others find it too sensitive or difficult a subject for group discussion, par-
ticularly early on in your stay with them, and the method would need to be adjusted
accordingly, for example by using key informants rather than groups and waiting to
do the wealth ranking until you have built trust. It also only works in relatively small
communities in which people know each other well and are able to rank the house-
holds. An alternative approach would be using key informants to discuss the con-
cept of wealth, making a list of key indicators of wealth (for example, capital assets)
and then using a checklist to record their presence in each household.
3.2.4.2 Questionnaire surveys
Questionnaire surveys are the mainstay of quantitative social science research.
They cover a spectrum from using PRA-type approaches but with individuals to
formal structured interviews. A common approach is to use a semi-structured
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