March 23, 2012 - Despite a very productive day (only 119 surveys left and two more interviews schedule for next week!) I reached a breaking point today. Maybe this is something that happens to everyone doing this type of research. I hope. I'd like to think I'm not alone. So what happened? I had a terrible thought pass through my mind. I almost hate to say it out loud, but here goes. I thought, why am I doing this again?
What led to this moment of self-doubt, or maybe better to call it project-doubt? Well, first I got some not-so-positive feedback on my initial analysis outline (where I basically said here is what I hope to be able to say). Then, I was happily entering the 38 surveys I collected today only to find out that several clients completed only half the survey. So frustrating because I'm really trying to maintain a decent level of data quality.
While I realize these frustrations are normal, especially in programmatic research, it got me thinking, is this research even going to be useful? All these questions start popping into my head. For example, we decided to focus on client behaviors, but maybe a health knowledge test would have revealed more useful results. Can you really show a difference in behaviors between new and old clients with a sample of only 5%, which aren't even all complete? And obviously I should have done multiple choice for questions like where do you live and what is your business because the women wrote so many different things it will be impossible to reconcile them. And why didn't I make the range of membership bigger? Everyday women laugh at me when I say "más de 2 años?" Of course, they say, años, más de 10!" On top of the survey shortcomings I start thinking about my interviews too. With only three left to do I'm still wanting to add questions, but then I won't have that data for all clients.
Cue minor freak out. But...deep breaths...and I start thinking back to the preliminary analysis I did. Sure, it probably needs some tweaking, and it won't be perfect. But, based on the surveys collected so far, I've found that longer-term clients were more likely to have had a PAP in the last year. That's interesting and certainly valuable to Pro Mujer as PAPs are a key metric. Also, longer-term clients were more likely to report good health than bad (although overall this variable is dismal). Also, I've found that while the concept of exercise is foreign to most clients, many of them walk for several hours everyday. Hours!
So, after a "calm moment" as we used to say in college, plus a little internal pep talk, I've decided, my research is valuable. And hopefully Pro Mujer will use this information, plus direct suggestions I pass on from our clients, to improve their health services and health education.
Ok, all good now. Back to work....
What led to this moment of self-doubt, or maybe better to call it project-doubt? Well, first I got some not-so-positive feedback on my initial analysis outline (where I basically said here is what I hope to be able to say). Then, I was happily entering the 38 surveys I collected today only to find out that several clients completed only half the survey. So frustrating because I'm really trying to maintain a decent level of data quality.
While I realize these frustrations are normal, especially in programmatic research, it got me thinking, is this research even going to be useful? All these questions start popping into my head. For example, we decided to focus on client behaviors, but maybe a health knowledge test would have revealed more useful results. Can you really show a difference in behaviors between new and old clients with a sample of only 5%, which aren't even all complete? And obviously I should have done multiple choice for questions like where do you live and what is your business because the women wrote so many different things it will be impossible to reconcile them. And why didn't I make the range of membership bigger? Everyday women laugh at me when I say "más de 2 años?" Of course, they say, años, más de 10!" On top of the survey shortcomings I start thinking about my interviews too. With only three left to do I'm still wanting to add questions, but then I won't have that data for all clients.
Cue minor freak out. But...deep breaths...and I start thinking back to the preliminary analysis I did. Sure, it probably needs some tweaking, and it won't be perfect. But, based on the surveys collected so far, I've found that longer-term clients were more likely to have had a PAP in the last year. That's interesting and certainly valuable to Pro Mujer as PAPs are a key metric. Also, longer-term clients were more likely to report good health than bad (although overall this variable is dismal). Also, I've found that while the concept of exercise is foreign to most clients, many of them walk for several hours everyday. Hours!
So, after a "calm moment" as we used to say in college, plus a little internal pep talk, I've decided, my research is valuable. And hopefully Pro Mujer will use this information, plus direct suggestions I pass on from our clients, to improve their health services and health education.
Ok, all good now. Back to work....
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