Exploring the Missing Links between Cause and Effect

Abstract

Programme evaluation has become a widely applied mode of systematic inquiry for making judgements about public policies. Although evaluation, as a form of systematic inquiry, has provided feedback information for policy makers, it still too often produces banal answers to complex and multi-dimensional societal problems. In this article, we take a close look at the ontological premises, conceptions of causality, and relationships to rational theories of action of different programme evaluation paradigms. There is a paradigm crisis in evaluation resulting from differences over assumptions about causality. Evaluation paradigms clearly provide research strategies, but more particularly they map causal links in contrasting ways. Traditional cause-and-effect logic disregards the fact that programme effects are always brought about by real actors rather than constructed ideal actors. A new interpretation of causes and effects is needed, which would strengthen the core ideas that lie behind the now widely applied and consolidated realistic evaluation tradition.

Improving Process Evaluations of Health Behavior Interventions

“…One then considers the settings, social networks of those involved and change over time, which form a system into which the intervention is introduced. The outcomes produced are conceptualized as emerging from the reactions produced in the ''intervention field'' rather than simply as a result of causal processes within an intervention (Virtanen & Uusikylä, 2004).…”

“…Some distinguish between short or intermediate outcomes and longer term outcomes (McLaughlin & Jordan, 1999;Sidani & Sechrest, 1999). Some address different levels such as individual, interpersonal, collective (James & Meezan, 2002) or micro, meso, macro (Virtanen & Uusikylä, 2004). In other respects, these graphical models vary in the amount of detail provided, the exact elements they contain, and the overall style of graphic.…”

Theory-Based Evaluation and Types of Complexity

“…18. See Coleman (1990), and how it has been elaborated for evaluation purposes by Virtanen and Uusikyla (2002) in a paper presented at the EES conference in Seville. 19.…”

Policies to Foster Entrepreneurship: Elements from the European Experience in the Integrated Micro-Meso-Macro Analytical Perspective

“…i Virtanen and Uusikylä (2004) focus on the implementation of programs that derive from public policies and use the multi-level approach as a program evaluation tool: Program goals start at the macro-level and end up converted into various project goals and values by individuals at the micro-level. Then, these goals change into activities at the micro-level, causing specific effects at the macro-level.…”

“…The micro-level concerns specific policy objectives served by on-the-ground measures (Howlett, 2009), while the micro-level entrepreneurial policy objectives appear to enhance entrepreneurial skills and incentives (Mirzanti, Simatupang, & Larso, 2015). Finally, analysts and policymakers alike must not neglect the meso-level, which connects the other two levels, mainly established on a local level of action and innovation effort (Virtanen & Uusikylä, 2004;Peneder, 2017).…”