Journal of Agroecology, Environment and Sustainable Farming | 08 January 2008
Methodological Assessment of Quasi-Experimental Design in Off-Grid Community Systems for Risk Reduction in South Africa,
K, g, o, s, i, w, e, N, g, w, e, n, y, a, ,, N, o, l, w, a, n, d, l, e, N, k, a, k, a, s, i, ,, S, i, p, h, o, M, k, h, i, z, e, ,, M, a, m, p, h, o, K, h, a, w, u, k, h, u, l, o
Abstract
Quasi-experimental designs are increasingly used in agricultural research to evaluate the impact of interventions without random assignment. A systematic review was conducted using databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Studies published between and present were included based on predefined inclusion criteria focused on off-grid community systems and quasi-experimental designs. The analysis revealed a significant proportion (35%) of studies employed multi-level modelling to account for contextual effects, enhancing the robustness of their findings. However, only 15% provided detailed uncertainty estimates using bootstrapping methods. While quasi-experimental designs have been used in off-grid community systems research, there is room for improvement regarding methodological rigor and transparency. Researchers should adopt multi-level modelling to better account for contextual variability and incorporate robust uncertainty estimation techniques like bootstrapping. Model estimation used $\hat{\theta}=argmin<em>{\theta}\sum</em>i\ell(y<em>i,f</em>\theta(x<em>i))+\lambda\lVert\theta\rVert</em>2^2$, with performance evaluated using out-of-sample error.