Steps

Following training, the peer evaluator researchers conduct a series of conversational interviews with a small sample of people from their social network (3-6). To remind themselves of the interview, they note a few key words.

On these interviews, peer evaluators ask:

• What do people like them say or do in terms of the specific behaviors/attitudes the research aims to study?
• Who exercises power and how power relations are experienced?
• Are programs meeting the needs of poor and vulnerable groups?
• Who is excluded from resources and services, and how/why?

Interviewees are never asked to talk directly about themselves in order to maintain confidentiality so all discussions remained in third person.

Staff supervisors then interview the peer researchers every week for the duration of the study to learn about the interviews collected. Staff keep detailed notes on debriefings with peer researchers. For analysis, an experienced social researcher conducts in-depth interviews with peer researchers and develops a detailed report on her/his findings from these conversations.

Through a workshop, peer researchers also analyze their interviews as a group in order to identify key issues emerging form interviews, lessons learned for the project/initiative and changes to the tool for further use by the organization for future research and monitoring.

Variation

Another variation discussed by the Tearfund ROOTS Resources on Child Participation proposes training children to conduct child-to-child interviews to gather key information about changes or as baseline information.