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 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 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  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? The new funding rules for the US Department of Education’s $650 million Investing in Innovation appear based on an out-of-date model of evidence-based policy and hierarchy of evidence. Recent developments in our understanding of evidence-based policy would suggest changes are needed to the selection criteria and to how successful proposals will be Read the whole post –> Investing In Innovation – a need to apply what we know about evidence-based policy Is it OK to just document whatever changes happen to people over the life of the program and summarize these in an evaluation report under a heading called “Outcomes”? What if you point out in a disclaimer that you haven’t got any evidence that the program contributed to them? What if you don’t exactly call them “outcomes”? What if it’s just a low-budget evaluation? Answers: No, no, no, and NO! Here’s why Read the whole post –> Why genuine evaluation must include causal inference |
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