More and more, the importance of finding homegrown solutions to the socio-economic and developmental challenges in Africa is becoming evident. Research amongst the users for whom these solutions are intended is crucial as it helps shape the design and development of the solutions from the word go. It really is the first step that needs to be taken. Having conducted hundreds of empirical research interviews and observations in Africa (and still counting), I am constantly in awe of the power of research in providing that insight that might easily have been missed particularly in the quest to come up with homegrown solutions to any particular problem or situation begging to be solved.
With the help of my student research mentees, I concluded a study on integration of mobile technologies into higher education learning in Africa where we targeted respondents from 5 universities in 5 countries namely Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. Although the use of mobile technologies has grown to such an extent over recent years that they now overtake the proliferation of personal computers in modern professional and social contexts, the use of these devices is not widespread in higher education. Hence our study sought to find out more about this phenomenon and explore ways in which mobile technologies could be integrated more into learning. Taking this issue as a case example, one might assume that the kind of solution that would work best is that which takes the current applications and services that students already use heavily and leveraging these for learning purposes. What our research study revealed however is that this may not necessarily be a correct assumption. This is what one of the key informants at the University of Cape Town in South Africa had to say:
“My experience with something like Facebook for example is that students said – “Facebook is our thing, it’s a fun thing, it’s a social thing, don’t mess it up by turning it into a work space. If we wanted to work we’ll go look at Vula. I don’t want to be your friend on facebook. Don’t mix work and pleasure” (Vula is a University of Cape Town portal for academic and related activities)
Other than the assumption that we already know what users need and what would work, many a time people may also shy away from research for various other reasons which include cost and time. The good news is that research does not have to be expensive or extremely time consuming depending on the methodology one applies. Nowadays there are many creative ways of seeking the voice of the user and/or experts in a particular field. Crowdsourcing is a good example. It can be used for many different purposes one of which is research. It’s a way of getting a large number of people to give their input without the traditional process of pen and paper and face to face interviews which poses significant logistical and budgetary constraints. Interested in experiencing how such innovative research approaches work? We have a specialized unit at Research PLUS Africa which provides Research Counsel Services and whose work is largely based on our ‘novel approaches’ value. Here you will find research experts who will not only advise you on how else other than the usual ways that you can conduct your research, but will also hand hold you through the process of getting it done.
