Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar
Research design and sampling strategy
The research design was mixed-methods, consisting of: 1) FGDs with young people; 2) KIIs with young people, parents,
teachers and community leaders; 3) a short social media use survey administered to all FGD participants and a
convenience sample of participants recruited at youth centres, tea shops, universities, high schools, and other public
spaces in each of the selected research sites.
The methodology used a stratified sampling technique to ensure diversity in the participant population. The following
stratification of townships and villages is based on Myanmar units of governance. However, it should be noted that in
many areas (for instance, Kayah) these units fail to grasp community distributions in ethnic minority areas. As such,
purposive sampling was used at the village and participant level to account for the bias introduced by using central state
units.
At the Township Level, sites were selected on the basis of SC-Myanmar programming and feasibility of access, and
diversity of population, specifically:
Loikaw Townships (Kayah)
Sittwe Townships (Rakhine)
At the Village Level, purposive sampling was used to select villages. The purposive sampling criteria included:
Religious diversity
Rural/Urban distribution
People living in camp areas for internally displaced people (IDPs)
More specifically:
In Kayah State:
a) Loikaw Urban (Buddhist);
b) Loikaw Urban (Christian);
c) Loikaw rural villages (Buddhist)
d) Loikaw rural villages (Christian)
In Rakhine State:
e) Sittwe Urban (Buddhist)
f) Sittwe Urban (Christian)
g) Sittwe IDP Camp (Rohingya Muslim)
h) Sittwe IDP Camp (Kaman Muslim)
Rural villages in Rakhine State were not sampled due to limitations of time and resources, and anticipated delays in the
research permissions process.
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