Thursday, January 8, 2015

FWS Research Assistant Highlights: Naila Rafique


This semester I have the great pleasure to assist Dr. J.P. Singh with an on-going research project on international development that will result in a book publication. Through the help of two other research assistants, Corina Solorzano and Salimatou Ouedraogo, we are coding several World Bank projects, looking for deliberation and participation practices.

What I actually do on a weekly basis is quiet complex and very intriguing. I, along with the other two RAs, collect and summarize documents and material from World Bank projects and then use a sophisticated coding scheme that was also designed with our help to measure different factors about each project with a focus on information technologies and development. This process involves great detail and precise intercoder reliability, which is being effectively met with the importance on dialogue and calibration amongst each other. 

I discovered that measuring participation is more complex then it seems. It not only requires looking at many stages of a project and really analyzing the importance of each part of the process but also looking at the post operations and implications of it on a certain population.

This is related to my long-term goals in many ways. The first thing is that this opportunity has led my exposure to research in the field of international development. I have also through this experience been able to construct and use a coding scheme that really helps better analyze a document succinctly. These are all things that will be very useful when looking to do my own research for my masters and eventually doctorate, which will examine and probe literature and content of the same nature. I am very thankful to OSCAR for giving me this opportunity and exposure that will be extremely helpful in my future ventures.