AN ADAPTIVE HOUSEHOLD SAMPLING METHOD FOR RURAL AFRICAN COMMUNITIES

Introductory Comments from Richard Douglass This issue of AJFAND is special in a new way. The need for improved and appropriate research methods throughout Africa has been recognized for some time and in this issue AJFAND declares that it is time to address the issue. I have had the privilege of serving on the Editorial Board, reviewing manuscripts for technical and substantive quality, working with young scholars to get their work into print, and collaborating with Professor Ruth Oniang’o to move this journal to the forefront of discovery and multidisciplinary scientific communication. The joy of the work has frequently been frustrated by the presentation of good questions and ideas that are pursued with inadequate research methodology. From many of these submissions since 2001 it has become clear to me, and also by many other reviewers, that the teaching and state of the art regarding research methods is often dismal. Many submissions demonstrate a very elementary and naïve understanding of research methods. A large proportion of survey-based studies, for instance, report dependence on the catch-all “convenience sample” that may serve the purpose of developing new questions in the context of qualitative research, but can never demonstrate methodological transparency or replicability. Results of a single convenience sample cannot be used as a basis for extrapolation to any extant population.