This Research Summary shows how Working Paper 296 documents a quiet revolution, unrecognised in professional mainstreams, that has been taking place in the past decade and a half. The paper challenges the common view that participatory approaches and methods are only good for qualitative data, and that statistics can only be generated by questionnaires or scientific measurement. It shows that many participatory methods have been used to produce quantitative data, and that these data tend to be more accurate, insightful and useful than those from questionnaires.