Testing an Approach to Improve the Use of Evidence
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 已完成
- 入组人数
- 322
- 试验地点
- 6
- 主要终点
- Change in Evidence Sources
研究概览
简要总结
This work aims to evaluate an approach for improving federal legislators' use of evidence-known as the Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC) - which seeks to address known barriers to policymakers' use of research, including a lack of personal contact between researchers and policymakers and limited relevance of research translation efforts to current policy priorities. The RPC involves structured processes for identifying policymakers' priorities, building researchers' capacity for nonpartisan responses to current policy priorities, and facilitating ongoing and productive researcher-policymaker interactions. This implementation of the RPC will focus on child and family policies relevant to child maltreatment.
This study assesses both processes for collaboration and policymakers' use of research within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) employing a mixed methods approach-including quantitative and qualitative evaluation of impact. The proposed project will be guided by three overarching questions:
- How does the RPC impact researchers and legislative staff?
- How does the RPC impact legislative activity?
- How might perceptions and experiences of collaboration through the RPC relate to different forms of evidence use among researchers and policymakers?
The RPC's effectiveness will be tested through experimental design (randomization) using qualitative and quantitative assessments of researcher-policymaker interactions and impact. This includes surveying congressional staff and researchers, reviewing records of policymaker's public statements and introduced legislation, and conducting qualitative interviews around researchers' and legislative staffs' experiences with researcher-policymaker collaboration prior to and during the RPC.
详细描述
Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a model for supporting policymakers' use of research evidence within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) employing both qualitative and quantitative analyses of survey, interview, and observational data to understand the use of research in policy and collaboration. Legislators' research use will be assessed with multiple methods, including (1) self-report via a survey protocol, (2) legislative activity (i.e., introduced bills and official statements), and (3) qualitative interviews. Additionally, interviews and surveys will assess researchers' reported efficacy, skill and engagement in public policy, and the extent to which their work is informed by the policy process.
Intervention: The Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC) builds upon theoretical and empirical literature that suggests the need to (a) translate research relevant to current policy priorities, and (b) facilitate productive interactions between policymakers and researchers. The RPC is a nonpartisan, manualized model implemented by an intermediary organization that cultivates relationships between researchers and legislative offices. Implementation occurs in two phases involving a series of seven interrelated activities. During the capacity-building phase, the RPC simultaneously aims to support researcher's development of honest knowledge broker skills with training and coaching, while also conducting iterative needs assessments with congressional offices regarding their current priorities and desire for research evidence. In the collaboration phase, researchers with relevant expertise are coalesced into rapid response teams that are matched with legislative offices. Through a scaffolded series of interactions, the RPC model is used to cultivate productive researcher-policymaker relationships and support responses to legislative requests. Evaluating the effectiveness of the RPC is the focus of the current study.
Study Design:
This study employs both qualitative and quantitative analyses of survey, interview, and observational data within the context of an RCT. Three overarching research questions guide this work and align with the study's three different components - self-report via a quantitative survey, observation of research use via coded legislative activity, and ethnography via in-depth interviews and participant observations.
- How does the RPC impact researchers and legislative staff? (Self-Report)
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Other
- 盲法
- Double (Participant, Outcomes Assessor)
盲法说明
- Participants: Participants will not be informed of their status as part of an intervention or control group.
- Provider: No masking
- Investigator: No masking
- Outcome Assessor: Survey data will indicate intervention assignment; observational data will be masked such that document coders will not be aware of the condition associated with coded documents.
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 18 Years 至 —（Adult, Older Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •Participants who voluntarily enlist in the RPC will be asked to participate in the trial.
排除标准
- •Participants who choose to stop participating in the study or the RPC itself. All study participants can choose to opt-out of the study at any time.
结局指标
主要结局
Change in Evidence Sources
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Congressional study participants will be asked what sources (e.g., personal contacts, academic journals) use to obtain evidence on policy issues.
Change in Interactions with Researchers
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Congressional study participants will be asked how often they have interacted with researchers in different settings in the past 3 months.
Change in Policy Engagement
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Researcher study participants will be asked how frequently they have engaged with policymakers in different activities and at different stages of the policy process.
Change in Policy-Related Self-Efficacy
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Researcher study participants will be asked how confident and prepared they feel about engaging with policymakers.
Change in Intensive Research Use in Legislation
时间窗: Bills that were introduced one year prior to the RPC implementation, during the implementation period and one year during or following the RPC completion.
Each section in child/family bills will be dichotomously coded to indicate any type of research use. Each bill will be scored to indicate a proportion of sections in which evidence is used out of the sum of sections in the bill. These statement-level indicators are then aggregated by legislator.
Change in Reported Use of Evidence
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Congressional study participants will be asked how often they have accessed research and used research in decision-making processes in the past 3 months.
Change in Attitudes and Readiness Regarding Evidence Use
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Congressional study participants will be asked how valuable research is perceived by the staff and within the congressional office as a whole, as well as perceived benefit of social science specifically.
Change in Policy-Informed Research
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Researcher study participants will be asked their perceived value in engaging policymakers in the research process, the extent to which their research activities are informed or guided by policymakers' needs, and the extent to which researchers have actively engaged policymakers in the research process in the last 3 months.
Change in Reported Policy Knowledge
时间窗: Assessed multiple times through study completion, an average of one year.
Researcher study participants will be asked the extent to which they understand policy processes and norms, and the degree to which they perceive a need for additional policy training.
Change in Official Statement Research Use
时间窗: Bills that were introduced one year prior to the RPC implementation, during the implementation period and one year following the RPC completion.
Legislators' public statements will be dichotomously coded to indicate any type of research use. These statement-level indicators will be aggregated by legislator.
Change in Research Use in Legislation
时间窗: Bills that were introduced one year prior to the RPC implementation, during the implementation period and one year during or following the RPC completion.
Child/Family bills will be dichotomously coded to indicate any type of research use. These statement-level indicators are then aggregated by legislator.
Change in Type of Use in Legislation
时间窗: Bills that were introduced one year prior to the RPC implementation, during the implementation period and one year during or following the RPC completion.
Child/family bills will be dichotomously coded to indicate the observation of different types of research use (e.g., conceptual, instrumental). These statement-level indicators are then aggregated by legislator.
次要结局
- Perceived Value of the Partnership(Assessed during the collaboration component of the intervention or up to one year after study initiation.)
- Perceived Impact of the Collaboration(Assessed during the collaboration component of the intervention or up to one year after study initiation.)
- Satisfaction with Collaboration(Assessed during the collaboration component of the intervention or up to one year after study initiation.)
- Trust and Respect(Assessed during the collaboration component of the intervention or up to one year after study initiation.)
研究者
Daniel Max Crowley
Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
Penn State University