n=1

On July 25, our Filipinas fought bravely against cohosts New Zealand at the Fifa Women’s World Cup. They were outgunned in the press and rankings, thought of as the beginner to the more veteran Global North sides.

Even the previous game with Switzerland showed possession on the side of the Swiss so that our team looked as though they were poor beginners in the game. Possession—or the ability to hold on to the ball, keep it on one’s side, pass it around—seemingly eluded our ladies. After all, if you didn’t have the ball, how could you think of even scoring?

Then, in the first half, there roared a goal from striker Sarina Bolden. It was to be the only valid goal of those 90 minutes, the single goal that won us the match. The statistics showed better possession by the New Zealand team, more goal attempts, more shots on target—but still, we won.

This preoccupation with possession, domination, and majorities has hounded us for years. We have government agencies that demand statistics for deep studies and unique cases, or government bureaus that invoke numbers to talk about how the country is supposedly growing, how market prices are supposedly lower, how more Filipinos can supposedly feel the improvements.And yet what are these numbers without a story to tell them? Where is the story of the fresh graduate who can’t get a job? The worker who commutes to and from work each day with the most meager of pay, who still can’t afford to feed her family? The farmer who has lost another harvest to a storm?

In research, we are often told to get a “representative sample” or that which truly stands for the group that we are studying. For those on the quantitative side, this means a sample size large enough to represent the population, without being too large so that any kind of average can be derived. This might call for 1,800 or 384 people (often written as n=1800 or n=384, respectively), depending on how big the population is, what the study seeks to achieve, how many questions are asked, among other things.

For those on the qualitative side, it might mean looking for a group that represents the whole, or even studying a case that is interesting on its own merits—so unique, and yet so universal, that its story can give us insight into a specific aspect of the human condition. Our minimum sample size? n=1.

Sometimes, one person can hold a story all their own. The lone survivor of a plane crash, the lone woman elected to the city council, the lone student who becomes class valedictorian after years of struggling. We don’t need to find a hundred plane crash survivors, elected women, or struggling valedictorians. A single story, a few points, are enough to tell their truth.

Another poignant example: elections. True, we call on millions of people to vote and count which candidate gets the majority. But the millions simply represent what people want, or are made to want, at that point in time. They do not say whether someone is actually a good public servant, or has served the country well. The story of votes is not that of the candidate, but those of the voters: who did they think would be the person to lift them out of their miseries, and why did they think that such a person would best fit? That is the question.

Education researcher Sharan Merriam has written about n=1, the sample size which, if used in very well-designed research, can actually reveal deeper, nuanced truths. She uses the concept of a magic trick. If a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, who can tell the truth of what really happened? Is it the 1,000 spectators who saw the trick, or the one magician?

It doesn’t always take possession and domination to win a game. It doesn’t always take numbers to tell a complete story, to speak of people’s hardships, to encapsulate their dreams.

On Sunday the 30th, Norway beat us soundly to the tune of six goals to none. It was a painful scene to behold, but one that gives hope. After all, it took six goals to silence our team, which fought valiantly to the end.

But is it really the end? Judging from how the Filipinas played, and have inspired young girls to come to football, it seems we still have a long, exciting road ahead of us. Maybe, just this once, one World Cup appearance isn’t enough.

n=1, and growing.

It’s just the beginning.

iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu