Research Methods and Approaches in ‘Innovation in Livestock Systems’ Research Projects at International Livestock Research Institute, Addis Ababa

The project was undertaken at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI, Addis Ababa) in Innovation in Livestock Systems Research team. It assessed the research methods, approaches and practices followed and, challenges faced thereof by the ‘Innovation in Livestock Systems’ research team projects. The main purpose of the attachment was to accomplish different research methods tasks in the project and learn from the research methods activities of the project and other similar research projects. Research methods tasks comprised of research consultancy, review of research reports and proposal, introduction to the statistical software SPSS, data management and data analysis. Research consultancy to researchers and graduate students was provided based on collaborative approach. Most of the consultancy tasks focused on data management and data analysis aspects of the research projects. Challenges observed during consultancy indicated that the need of involving research methods professional starting from the inception stages of the projects. The proposal “Household livelihood, and socio-organizational impact of animal health interventions” and research report “The value of Innovation system analysis for livestock research and policy” were reviewed based on designed review guidelines. These review indicated that researchers should work more on organization of their report. Introduction to the statistical software SPSS was provided to small group of research technicians for International Water Management Institute. The training task indicated the presence of limited capacity in using different statistical tools. The data management tasks mainly focused on design of data collection instrument, data organization, data cleaning and data storage for different data sets from the team and student projects. Limited data management practice was observed among researchers and students. Data analysis to determine the factors which affect the intensity of forage innovation among positive deviants were undertaken using OLS, Tobit and Heckman Two stage models. Heckman model was found to be appropriate due to the presence of selection bias among the positive deviant samples. The result indicated that training, intensity of collaboration, dairy cooperative membership, innovation index, total livestock units and forage technologies with follow up will positively affect intensity of innovation in forage technologies. In additions, secondary data analysis on factors which affect the success in Trypanomosis management was also undertaken using logit model. The data was analyzed using four statistical software; Stata 10, SPSS16, R and GenStat 12 and all software used in this analysis gave comparable results. The result indicated that cut and carry livestock management system, intensity of access to drugs and total time for treatment will positively affect success in the disease management. Finally, baseline data for “Household livelihood, and socio-organizational impact of animal health intervention” study was consolidated from Ghibe household surveys data sets undertaken in 1997 and 1998. During the analysis challenges related to secondary data analysis such as lack of data quality were observed. For each of the above tasks the approach used, sample results, challenges faced and various lessons learned were summarized in this dissertation.