Compare methods

	Matrix Scoring and Ranking	Seasonal Calendar
Field	Anthropology	Anthropology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1994	1994
Originator	Participatory Rural Appraisal tradition (Robert Chambers and colleagues)	Participatory Rural Appraisal tradition (Robert Chambers and colleagues)
Type	Participatory scoring of options against locally generated criteria in a matrix	Participatory visualization of intra-annual variation across activities and conditions
Seminal source	Chambers, R. (1994). The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969.	Chambers, R. (1994). The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development, 22(7), 953–969.
Aliases	Matrix Scoring, Preference Matrix, Pairwise and Matrix Ranking, Criteria Scoring Matrix	Seasonal Calendar Diagramming, Seasonality Diagram, Seasonal Activity Matrix, Seasonal Mapping
Related	4	4
Summary	Matrix scoring and ranking is a participatory rural appraisal tool in which community members evaluate a set of options — crop varieties, services, trees, livestock breeds, sources of water — against criteria they themselves generate, arranged as a matrix. Options run along one axis and criteria along the other, and participants score each cell, typically by placing a number of counters such as seeds or stones to show how well an option performs on that criterion. Summing the scores across criteria produces a ranking of the options that reflects the community's own values and priorities.	A seasonal calendar is a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tool in which community members chart how key conditions and activities vary across the months or seasons of a typical year on a shared visual matrix. Rows represent variables such as rainfall, crop labour, income, food availability, migration, illness, or expenditure, while columns represent the local division of the year. By filling the cells with stones, marks, or piles whose size shows intensity, participants produce a collective picture of seasonality that reveals when stresses pile up and when slack periods occur.