Preparation Exploration Negotiation Implementation
Researcher: This collaboration needs to meet the highest standards of scientific rigor. This seems interesting; let’s add it!
Practitioner: Can we please focus on need-to-know information only? How much time and effort do you think we and our communities have to give to answering your unreasonable number of questions? I actually don't know how much completing this research activity will actually cost, so I am going to pack the scope of work with deliverables and see if I can lowball the academic partner. Wouldn't it be enough to explore two or three of the most practical influencing factors and not all of them? As a practitioner, I can live with "good enough", because my objective is to make an informed decision, not to have a fully unbiased, generalizable view of a certain topic.
Convergence: Academics: Have the discipline to stick to need-to-know vs nice-to-know. Understand that many of the respondents are also program participants with the practitioners, and being too demanding of these participants during data collection can negatively influence the relationship that practitioners have with communities. INGOs: Anticipate that requirements for academic rigor may exceed your comfort zone, but don’t be afraid to push back at times, particularly when it could jeapardize important relationships with government or communities with whom you work.
Questions Researchers Can Ask:
What do you need to know from the research?
Who are the participants in the research study? Are they involved in your current programming? How representative are they of the larger community/region/country?
What, if any, kind of programmatic data (M&E) do you collect from the community? What methods are used and at what intervals?
Academically, I am interested in _____. Does this align with your interests?
Questions Practitioners Can Ask:
What do you need to achieve academic rigor for this research?
How can we reconcile what you need for rigor and what I need for practice?
What research methods will you use? If it is a survey or interview how much time will you need from participants?
How much time will the research take? How frequently and in what ways do we and our communities need to be involved?
Practically, I am interested in _____. Does this align with your research interests?
Questions Both Can Ask:
What is nice to know versus need to know?