PRA-Manual Embracing Participitation tools-only.pdf - PACA

3.44 EMBRACING PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT: Wisdom from the Field
Following is an example of using the matrix scoring method:
MATRIX RANKING OF PREFERENCE FOR SEX PARTNERS FOR GIRLS
Prepared by a group of 14-16 year old girls in South Chilenje, Lusaka
(From the field notes of Meera Kaul Shah and Mary Simasiku)
Overall
preference
Type of male Criteria for deciding preference (ranking,
sex partner (fixed score out of 10; 10=best) 1=best)
Not
moving
Not
married
with many
girls
Can take
responsibility
Has
money
Dresses
smartly
Is
educated
School boys 10 5 2 5 8 5 2
Yoos 10 0 0 5 7 5 6
Home boys 10 8 8 2 2 5 3
Taxi drivers 8 0 5 10 5 5 7
Teachers 5 0 5 3 5 10 5
Doctors 5 0 10 10 10 10 1
Cousins 5 5 4 5 5 5 8
Stepfathers 0 2 5 10 5 5 9
Church mates 8 5 8 8 8 5 4
Monku* 10 10 0 10 0 8
*Monkus are homosexuals (males). The girls first included them in their list, but
when they started evaluating each of the categories as sex partners, they decided
that they could not include the Monkus. Therefore, they did not give them any
preference ranking at the end.
Part 3
The group of girls carrying out the above analysis decided to give scores
out of ten for evaluating each of the types of sex partners against the
selected criteria. Doctors, who were ranked the most preferred sex partners,
can take responsibility, have money, dress smartly and are educated,
but are usually married and move with many girls.
Note that the last column in the above example gives ranks (while the rest of
the matrix has used the fixed scoring method). This column was added to the
matrix at the end, after the girls had completed their analysis. The group was
simply asked to rank the different types of sex partners in their list according to
their overall preference. One common mistake made while using the matrix
scoring method is adding up the scores to arrive at the overall preference. The
scores should never be totaled. Totaling the scores in the cells would indicate
that all the criteria have equal weight. This is very rare. Check this with the
above example. If the group had simply added up the scores in each row, they
would have come up with a rather different overall preference from the one
given above. Although doctors would have retained the first rank, it would
have been church mates, rather than school boys, in the second place, and
monkus (who were not given any rank at all), rather than home boys, in the
third place, and so on.