bias encountered during training

1. We live in a world plagued by biases. even the most noble of gentlemen find it hard to spare themselves
from it. but when we shift our perspective to rural, the biases tend to project issues that needs immediate
redressal.being students of rural management ,we carry lot of expectations, ours, people for whom we
would work for and many more. before analysing the works it is imperative to mention that all biases
are there because of lack of applied thought. during the period of stay of ars the most important factor
that stands out is that these biases did happen even though these were not intended.
as my action segment began from sundargarh, we were staying in office of our organization instead of
village. our visit to the villages were mostly from the eyes of a person who has went there for seeing,
not observing things .looking now from hindsight it now appears clear that we were greatly influenced
by staff of our local organization who had mentioned us that those areas were maoist prone and it is
better for us if we stay outside. this is a classic case of spatial bias. but we were lucky in a sense that
we saw its effects ourselves.when we went for pra, the villagers refused to co-operate, their reason
being why would they support a outsider who comes only for a few hours. though we shifted to village
few days later, but if we were given a chance now, surely decision to stay or not would not have been
influenced by local staff .because though we went for village stay few days later, but these wounds take
time to heal.as a novice when it comes to rural perspective ,we were greatly influenced by others people
opinion or someone who knew the conditions better than us.
The important part of my college work included household survey of 50 households which required a
sampling methodology. the methodology adopted was convenient sampling which as the name
suggests was adopted because it was convenient. biggest flaw that could arise from it is that it may not
be ideal representative of the population. my survey households included those which were nearer to
my place of stay and some of the houses that were surveyed were of people who use to have decent
conversation with me. i didn’t venture into the deeper areas as according to project staff these were
termed “not safe”. Also i didn’t saw any need for suspecting this because obviously my knowledge of
the conditions was much less than theirs. infact our knowledge was minimal. given a chance to survey
again my sample for the household survey would be more refined or lets say it would be free from
biases. because if biases creep in these matters, then the objective of household survey which is
supposed to represent village fails.
One of the important components of understanding resources of households and villages is conducting
participatory rural appraisal which includes transect walk, resource mapping and social mapping. the
objective of pra is to include participation of villagers to know from them their resources ,their problems
and finally presenting solutions to their problems which may benefit the community as a whole. but even
during these few biases crept in our study. during transect walk I was comfortable in conversing with
those people who understood a little bit hindi and were a bit educated.though it was not purposeful as
I was unknown to local language-oriya but yes it some way it was effected by elite bias as our
knowledge of the village and its surroundings was only through people who could understand our
language.even though i tried to invite everyone for our pra ,female attendance was small.it did affect
somehow while I was drawing our venn-diagram ,the analysis was drawn giving more importance to
preferences of the male kind. whenever a study of such kind is conducted it is really necessary to take
the woman folk into confidence.
The other major part of the study includes rural action component where I was required to work
for the organization for which I was intern. project activities in sundargarh district required creating
awareness among villagers regarding organic farming. the project activities required me to conduct
meeting with S.H.G members ,which in itself was somewhat a professional bias because I was required
to form new S.H.G’s and then impart them with knowledge of agro-organic farming. but our activities
mainly revolved around existing S.H.G members. those who were not members were kept away from
the ambit of beneficiary as it is easier to track S.H.G members than those who are not. our activity in
sagar islands which required us to study the undp small grants programme and see the demonstration
plots of salt –resistant paddy was in some way affected by user and adopter bias as I could only talk
with people who were owners of demonstration plots and not with other people who were resistant in
using it. these one sided views often present an incomplete picture of the ongoing project and changes
it brings to the society. another work in which I was involved was imparting training to S.H.G members
on S.H.G management and imparting them training on how to maintain proper accounts. though the

2. objective of the program was to include all members of the neighbouring villages, but the actual training
included members which were from economically weaker sections of society ,a professional bias as it
creates a better outlook in the minds of people when one wants to highlight the beneficiaries.
In handsight when I sit down to analyse my village study, I know the limitations it has. Being with a
organization I also had certain limitations as I had no authority to control things in some cases.having
said that coming from a urban background,I was more interested in completing the work I was assigned
to do rather than seeing it from their perspective. the main idea of these visits is to know from your own
what you want to know ,however what happens is most of the times I was dependent on information
which was feeded to me either by local project staff or by members of village who had a say in village
matters. this was observed even when I was conducting focus group discussions. the most influential
people in the village seemed to have most problems ,which shows instead of greater community issues,
they were highlighting their personal agenda.
A report cannot be termed a true measure of understanding rural perspective and challenges if it was
affected by such biases. given a chance would dearly love to remove these ramifications from my study
and make my study a more complete one that is purely independent of the biases that might creep in.