Using digital tools to engage Kenyan development students with data

This paper describes the use of innovative tools for teaching research methods to undergraduate students in Development Studies and Political Sciences in Kenya. These tools included open educational resources such as those available in Computer-Assisted Statistics Textbooks and Statistics Made Simple. Such resources, rooted in practical examples and real-life scenarios, enabled students understanding theoretical concepts through their application. Open Data Kit, an open- source suite of tools that enables the design of surveys, data collection through mobile devices and data submission to an online server, was used to provide the students with practical experience. These tools can be used to transform teaching and provide graduates with the practical skills required in the field of development. Moreover, they can be successfully deployed in resource-poor environments like Kenya, where relatively few students have access to laptops or computers and the internet connectivity is relatively low, but most have access to mobile devices.