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 Yet another study announced which aims to find “the” best way – this time the best way to treat anorexia nervosa. As reported in The Age: Australian researchers will conduct a world-first study to find the optimal treatment for the debilitating, and often deadly, disorder anorexia nervosa. Around one in five people, usually women, Read the whole post –> Finding “the best” way  How might a productivity expert assess an orchestral performance? And what can we learn about genuine evaluation from Read the whole post –> The Friday Funny: A productivity analysis of Schubert’s work Why can’t newspapers be more critical when they report findings from research and evaluation, and provide easy links to more details? A new study by researchers from Australia’s major government research instution (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – CSIRO) , reviewing the health effects of eating apples, has received the usual standard of reporting Read the whole post –> An apple a day – or cherry-picking the studies? Watching games at the FIFA World Cup, I’ve wondered whether there might be a need for some transparent meta-evaluation of referee decisions. [Conflict of interest warning - Australian commentator]. Picture caption: Sent off … Brazil’s Kaka walks off as Ivory Coasts Abdelkader Keita holds his face after a push in the chest. Photo: Reuters In other Read the whole post –> Is there a need for meta-evaluation at the World Cup? How do we find out whether programs, projects and policies have really made a difference? Given the complex array of other influences on the outcomes, is it all too hard? Jane and I have been doing some separate thinking and writing about this. Putting these together has produced a new map of the issues which might be very useful. Read the whole post –> Causal inference for program theory evaluation  In the medical profession in particular, there are some very rigid beliefs about what constitutes good enough “evidence of effectiveness” to justify offering, recommending, allowing patients to try, or even just not vehemently opposing a particular type of treatment for a patient. There are some glimmers of hope in other sectors (e.g. in the Best Evidence Synthesis work here in New Zealand). But there are still three areas where there are very serious challenges in building a credible evidence base given the kinds of constraints and realities surrounding them. They are: (1) cutting-edge treatments; (2) treatments that are by their very nature tailored/individualized rather than standardized across patients or populations; and (3) learning what works for small Read the whole post –> What constitutes “evidence”? Implications for cutting-edge, tailored treatments, and small sub-populations Has a large RCT provided definitive proof that vitamin A supplementation is ineffective in reducing maternal mortality? Or could there be another explanation? And why hasn’t the widespread reporting of these findings examined Read the whole post –> Intention To Treat and checking for implementation failure and differential effects – questions about vitamin A trials in Ghana I’m not sure I can come up with a ‘Copernican’ revolution of the scale Michael Scriven described in his previous post, but perhaps I can run an idea up the flagpole that has came as a realization or light-bulb moment for me and still seems to surprise and sometimes amaze other people I talk to and work with … There is a long-held belief that evaluations that draw explicitly evaluative conclusions are somehow diametrically opposed to or completely incompatible with culturally responsive evaluations that fully reflect and respect the cultural values and worldviews of indigenous peoples and others whose voices are often not heard. Read the whole post –> Rethinking evaluation: Explicitly evaluative and culturally inclusive approaches When a large and expensive evaluation fails to produce useful results, it’s worth seeing if at least it can be useful as a cautionary tale. Blueprint is a UK Government-funded drugs education programme consisting of five components: drug education in schools (for 11 and 12-year-olds – this was the main emphasis), drug education for parents, Read the whole post –> £6 million over 5 years – and STILL no genuine evaluation of Blueprint? Curious post by Tim Harford in the Financial Times recently “Political ideas need proper testing” that slides from advocating for better empirical investigation of public policy by systematic experimentation to discussing this only in terms of RCTs – and then uses as the exemplar a brilliant example of using other types of evidence to inform Read the whole post –> Advocating for RCTs – with a non-RCT example? |
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