TABLE 2.
Approach to Identifying Research Use
| Step | Examples of Available Options | Our Approach |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Identify what constitutes research. | •“Citable” research (i.e., research that is published in a publicly available form, such as journal articles, book chapters, working papers, and/or reports). | • Citable research (which covers the types of research outputs typically produced by health services research units). |
| • Research produced by particular groups. | • Citable research produced by government-funded independent research units. | |
| • Research meeting particular methodological standards. | ||
| • Any professional social inquiry that can aid in social problem solving.1 | ||
| 2. Identify explicit uses of research. | • Policymakers state in an interview or survey that research was used in some of the prioritization (i.e., agenda-setting), policy-development, or policy-implementation stages of the policymaking process. | • When describing in an interview the prioritization and policy-development stages of the policymaking process, policy advisers mention that citable research was used in one of those stages. |
| • Researchers state in an interview or survey that they believe their own research was used in some of the stages of the policymaking process. | • Sources for corroboration: | |
| • Documents used in one of these two stages of the policymaking process cite research. | ||
| • Documents used in some of the stages of the policymaking process cite research. | • Research-unit directors state in a survey that they believe that “citable” research produced by their unit was used in one of these two stages of the policymaking process. | |
| 3. Assess the explicit uses of research. | • Policymakers describe in an interview or survey: | • Policy advisers mention in an interview: |
| • How they accessed the research. | • How they (and/or the legislators they were advising) accessed the citable research (coded as reading original research, reading reports produced by policy advisers or interest groups, media, interacting with researchers, involving researchers in a working group, or attending hearings). | |
| • How they used the research. | ||
| • The proportion of policy issues addressed by the research. | ||
| • How they used citable research (coded as instrumental, conceptual, or symbolic uses). | ||
| • The particular policy issue(s) addressed by the citable research (coded as informed all or part of the policy issues being addressed in the policy stage). | ||
| 4. Identify and assess explicit uses of other types of information (which may or may not be based on research). | • Policymakers state in an interview or survey that other types of information were used in some of the stages of the policymaking process. | • Policy advisers mention in a semistructured interview: |
| • Other types of information used in the prioritization or policy-development stage of the policymaking process (coded deductively). | ||
| • Policymakers describe in an interview or survey: | ||
| • How they accessed the other types of information. | ||
| • How they used the other types of information. | ||
| • The proportion of policy issues addressed by the other types of information. | • How they accessed the other types of information (coded as reading, media, interacting with peers or stakeholders, involving peers or stakeholders in a working group, or attending hearings). | |
| 5. Identify nonexplicit uses of research. | • Researchers identify in an interview or survey that they believe their own or others’ research was embedded in other influences on the policymaking process. | • Not addressed in exploratory study. |
| • Research embedded in other types of information. | ||
| • Research embedded in “tacit knowledge.”2 | ||
| • Research embedded in the stakeholders’ positions. | ||
| • Research embedded in existing institutional arrangements. |