How Teaching Research Design Advances Applied Anthropology

Mastery of research design options offers a powerful tool in the Applied Anthropologist's toolkit. Because policy makers depend upon reliable evidence – and not just debates – applied anthropologists need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses in data collection methods and designs to offer reasonable and strong approaches to problem solving. Future applied anthropologists may find themselves in situations where a variety of data collection methods are called for (from qualitative to quantitative) and must be able to think through various comparative designs (from simple two group designs to more complicated multi group comparisons) to find a reasonable answer to a problem. Students need to be exposed to the smorgasbord of design, data collection, and analysis options to make wise choices and to be able to pivot to a revised plan, which such action is called for.