5             BASELINE STUDY

Baselines are done mainly to establish benchmarks so that subsequent monitoring and evaluation can assess the effects of the project for the target population.

Assessment of information needs of the target population will help planners formulate long-term or broad and intermediate or specific objectives of the project. Examples of different levels of objectives are given below:- 

Long - term Objective	Intermediate Objectives
Improve the economic condition of the farmers	Increased number of farmers taking to better methods of agriculture e.g. use of improved implements, high yielding varieties of crops, new crop rotations, water management, pest management, storage and marketing

Your next job is to carry out a baseline study in relation to the different levels of objectives of the project. 

Need for Baseline Study 

Like every researcher, you will also face the challenge of knowing whether the project has done what the plans said it would do and understanding the ways it has made a difference in the lives of the people. In other words, assessing the value of what the project has done will be a challenge.

Your job of evaluating the impact of the project (i.e. summative evaluation) becomes easier, if shortly before the project services and activities begin, you attempt to know the current situation or the base from which the project activities make a start. This information is called baseline data. Without a baseline, subsequent demonstration of the effects of the project and changes in the behavior of the target population is generally difficult and unconvincing. 

Nature of Baseline Data 

Baseline study relies on new data collected from the target population and other primary sources. 

The data are often quantitative in nature, but some descriptive data might also be obtained.

The data are in terms of certain indicators. Indicators are simply criteria, which are used to check whether proposed changes have occurred. In the above example of agricultural education project, one indicator could be: 

‘Number and percentage of target families who have adopted improved varieties of maize crop’

Before the project is launched, information on the selected indicators is collected and similar information is collected again after a certain period of the project. The difference gives an idea about the achievement of the project. 

Selection of Good Indicators 

Choose your indicators carefully. Quality of assessment of the project will largely depend on the selection of the indicators. Some criteria for selection of good indicators are given as under: 

    • The indicators should be directly linked to the objectives of the project. 

For example, if in a literacy media project, literacy is directed towards women only, frame your indicators accordingly. Guard yourself against collecting excessive and non-specific information that may not be analyzed and used.

    • Determine indicators, which are specific, objectively measurable and that which reflect the progress in the project. 

Let us look at the following indicator: 

‘60% of the farmers will participate in income-generating activities’ 

It is expressed as a target, is vague and not clearly linked to the specific objectives. A better indicator would be: 

Number and percentage of farmers with project propagated income generating activities in place, like milk production, egg production and fish farming’ 

•   Indicators should indicate various levels of achievement in the project. For example, in the agricultural education project, the farmers may not be able to adopt improved varieties due to non-availability of seeds or their high cost. Non-adoption of the recommended varieties should not mean that the project has made no progress. To account for that, you also select such indicators that reflect new knowledge and change in attitude of the farmers about the varieties as a result of the project efforts. Inclusion of indicators of the following nature will meet this purpose:

‘Number and percentage of farmers who are aware of the existence of improved varieties of maize’  ‘Number and percentage of farmers who can name one or more improved varieties of maize’  ‘Number and percentage of farmers who show inclination to switch over to the cultivation of improved varieties of maize’

    • There could also be indicators, which show the extent of utilization of certain services and institutions, if these were the objectives of the media project. For example, 

‘Number and percentage of farmers visiting the Agricultural Research Centre or Agricultural Extension Office for the purpose of obtaining information’ 

    • Indicators should be comprehensive. Frame indicators to cover all the objectives, and the different aspects of each objective of the project. 

    • The information provided by the indicators should be usable. It should help make decisions or improve work and performance of the project.

    • Baselines are mostly quantitative in nature (numbers and percentages). But quantitative information alone cannot adequately assess changes in the peoples’ lives. The project may bring out changes in the level of thinking and perceptions of the people. Moreover, there may be changes, which were not intended in the project. It would, therefore, be a good idea to also attempt qualitative description of some key situations by doing case studies at the time of baseline study, and comparing these with similar case studies at a later stage. 

    • Sample your respondents carefully. The sample should be representative of the target population. Errors in sampling can spoil the value of the analysis e.g. sampling only farmers who are particularly likely to be changed by project interventions such as farmers with large holdings or educated farmers.

As already mentioned, information on the selected indicators originally documented in the baseline study is compared with that obtained on the same indicators after a reasonable lapse of time. The difference in the values indicates the effect of the project, as shown below: 

                                                                    Effect of the project = (X¹ - X)

It may, however, be argued that the difference in the ‘before and after’ status may not necessarily be due to the effect of the project. The change might have occurred otherwise also with the lapse of time due to some external factors. 

To meet this argument, a ‘with and without’ experimental design may be taken up. 

In the experimental design, a ‘control’ group (not exposed to media intervention) is compared with the ‘experimental’ group (exposed to the media intervention). Care, however, should be taken that the control group matches the experimental group in respect of all such possible variables as can influence the behaviour of the people such as education, socio-economic status, distance of the habitation from the town, etc. This is achieved by random assignment of the participants in the two groups. Baseline information is collected from both ‘control’ and ‘experimental’ groups. This is compared with the information obtained from both groups after the project is over. 

The difference in the net values of the experimental and the control groups gives true estimate of the effect of the project, as shown below: 

                                                            Effect of the project = (X³ - X²) - (X¹ - X) 


As you start collecting baseline data from the field, it would be a good idea to develop audience profiles at the same time. The information on the characteristics of the audience will stand the programme producers in good stead and to prepare appealing and interesting programmes for the target population. How to go about developing audience profiles is dealt with in the next chapter.