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Realist Evaluation
Realist evaluation or realist review (also realist synthesis) is a type of theory-driven evaluation method used in evaluating social programmes. It is based on the epistemological foundations of critical realism. Based on specific theories, realist evaluation provides an alternative lens to empiricist evaluation techniques for the study and understanding of programmes and policies. This technique assumes that knowledge is a social and historical product, thus the social and political context as well as theoretical mechanisms, need consideration in analysis of programme or policy effectiveness. Realist evaluation techniques recognise that there are many interwoven variables operative at different levels in society, thus this evaluation method suits complex social interventions, rather than traditional cause-effect, non-contextual methods of analysis. This realist technique acknowledges that intervention programmes and policy changes do not necessarily work for everyone, since peo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed (e.g. most pension systems), as opposed to ''social assistance'' programs which provide support on the basis of need alone (e.g. most disability benefits). The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury. More broadly, welfare may also encompass efforts to provide a basic level of well-being through free or subsidized ''social services'' such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, vocational training, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas: # The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification # Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony # The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs # Philosophical skepticism, which questions the pos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Realism (philosophy Of The Social Sciences)
Critical realism is a philosophical approach to understanding science, and in particular social science, initially developed by Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014). It specifically opposes forms of empiricism and positivism by viewing science as concerned with identifying causal mechanisms. In the last decades of the twentieth century it also stood against various forms of postmodernism and poststructuralism by insisting on the reality of objective existence. In contrast to positivism's methodological foundation, and poststructuralism's epistemological foundation, critical realism insists that (social) science should be built from an explicit ontology. Critical realism is one of a range of types of philosophical realism, as well as forms of realism advocated within social science such as analytic realism and subtle realism.Madill, Anna (2012) 'Realism', in Lisa M. Given (ed.) ''The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods'', Thousand Oaks NJ, Sage. Contemporary critical reali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle-range Theory (sociology)
Middle-range theory, developed by Robert K. Merton, is an approach to sociological theorizing aimed at integrating theory and empirical research. It is currently the ''de facto'' dominant approach to sociological theory construction, especially in the United States. Middle-range theory starts with an empirical phenomenon (as opposed to a broad abstract entity like the social system) and abstracts from it to create general statements that can be verified by data. This approach stands in contrast to the earlier "grand" theorizing of social theory, such as functionalism and many conflict theories. Raymond Boudon has argued that "middle-range" theory is the same concept that most other sciences simply call "theory". The analytical sociology movement has as its aim the unification of such theories into a coherent paradigm at a greater level of abstraction. Definition The term "middle-range theory" does not refer to a specific theory, but is rather an approach to theory construct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on '' a priori'' reasoning, intuition, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Evaluation
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. In both the public and private sectors, stakeholders often want to know whether the programs they are funding, implementing, voting for, receiving or objecting to are producing the intended effect. While ''program evaluation'' first focuses around this definition, important considerations often include how much the program costs per participant, how the program could be improved, whether the program is worthwhile, whether there are better alternatives, if there are ''unintended'' outcomes, and whether the program goals are appropriate and useful. Evaluators help to answer these questions, but the best way to answer the questions is for the evaluation to be a joint project between evaluators and stakeholders. The process of evaluation is considered to be a relatively recent phenom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Policy
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both ''subjective'' and ''objective'' decision making. Policies used in subjective decision-making usually assist senior management with decisions that must be based on the relative merits of a number of factors, and as a result, are often hard to test objectively, e.g. work–life balance policy... Moreover, Governments and other institutions have policies in the form of laws, regulations, procedures, administrative actions, incentives and voluntary practices. Frequently, resource allocations mirror policy decisions. Policy is a blueprint of the organizational activities which are repetitive/routine in nature. In contrast, policies to assist in objective decision-making are usually operational in nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BMJ Open
''BMJ Open'' is a peer-reviewed open access medical journal that is dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas. It is published by BMJ and considers all research study types, from protocols through phase I trials to meta-analyses, including small, specialist studies, and negative studies. Publishing procedures are built around fully open peer review and continuous publication, publishing research online as soon as the article is ready. ''BMJ Open'' aims to promote transparency in the publication process by publishing reviewer reports and previous versions of manuscripts as prepublication histories.The editor-in-chief is Adrian Aldcroft. Abstracting and indexing Since 2014 the journal is included in the Index Medicus and in MEDLINE. The journal is also abstracted and indexed in Scopus, the Science Citation Index Expanded., PubMed Central, Embase (Excerpta Medica), DOAJ and Google Scholar. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Interventionism
Social interventionism is an action which involves the deliberate intervention of a public or private organization into social affairs for the purpose of changing them. In other words, it is a deliberate attempt to change society in some way, "an alteration of the social structure". David Lloyd Hoffmann describes social interventionism as one of the two defining features of modernity and modern political systems (the second feature being mass politics). According to Hoffmann, a general ethos of social intervention arose across Europe by the 19th century, in which both state officials and non-governmental professionals working for charitable institutions or private companies tried to reshape their societies in accordance with scientific or aesthetic norms. This new ethos was based upon Enlightenment rationalism, with its belief that human society can and should be improved through the application of reason, as well as 17th century cameralism that pioneered the use of statistics and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Pawson
Ray Pawson is Professor of Social Research Methodology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , .... Pawson's main interest lies in research methodology. He has written widely on the philosophy and practice of research, covering methods qualitative and quantitative, pure and applied, contemporaneous and historical. He is the author of 'Realist Synthesis', a new approach of literature review that, in the last years, has widely influenced systematic review practices of complex programmes and policies all over the world. Select bibliography *Pawson, R. (2006) ''Evidence Based Policy: A Realist Perspective'', Sage. *Pawson, R.; Tilley, N (1997) ''Realistic Evaluation'', Sage. *Pawson, R. (1989) ''A Measure fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypothesis
A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can testable, test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories. Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used interchangeably, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research in a process beginning with an educated guess or thought. A different meaning of the term ''hypothesis'' is used in formal logic, to denote the antecedent (logic), antecedent of a proposition; thus in the proposition "If ''P'', then ''Q''", ''P'' denotes the hypothesis (or antecedent); ''Q'' can be called a consequent. ''P'' is the :wikt:assumption, assumption in a (possibly Counterfactual conditional, counterfac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evaluation Methods
Evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realisable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to ascertain the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed. The primary purpose of evaluation, in addition to gaining insight into prior or existing initiatives, is to enable reflection and assist in the identification of future change. Evaluation is often used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice, foundations, non-profit organizations, government, health care, and other human services. It is long term and done at the end of a period of time. Definition Evaluation is the str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
