C1 Background and Explanation of Rationale |
This study aims to generate reliable evidence about the provision and quality of citizen monitoring of public services. Governments around the world are building platforms to collect information from citizens. As part of these programs, agencies increasingly seek to leverage mobile technologies to engage beneficiaries in monitoring at lower costs and with the potential to generate more useful data. Unfortunately, existing research — which tends to be conceptual or descriptive — has provided little guidance about whether mobile technologies can enhance public engagement with government by facilitating regular, high-quality, and useful feedback about the quality of public services. This experimental study of citizen monitoring of solid waste services is uniquely suited to answer foundational questions about citizen engagement with governments as mobile technologies become universally adopted. Because solid waste services are visible, we can verify the quality and timeliness of reports. We can also assess how citizen monitoring affects service delivery as part of a longer-term project.
|
C2 What are the hypotheses to be tested? |
H1a (Provision): More nominated reporters will respond to at least one prompt than randomly recruited reporters.
H1b (Provision): Nominated reporters will respond to more prompts than randomly recruited reporters, measured as a count both over the entire 8-week experiment and within individual weeks.
H1c (Provision): Nominated reporters will respond to more open-ended prompts than randomly recruited reporters, measured as a count both over the entire 8-week experiment and within individual weeks.
H2 (Attrition): Of reporters who respond to at least one prompt in the first two weeks of the experiment, fewer nominated reporters will discontinue reporting than randomly recruited reporters, measured as a lack of reporting for at least two weeks that continues through the end of the 8-week experiment.
H3 (Accuracy): Conditional on reporting, nominated reporters will provide information that is closer to independent measures of the severity of solid waste problems than randomly recruited reporters.
H4 (Representativeness): Nominated reporters will provide information indicating a larger variance of solid waste conditions than randomly recruited reporters.
|