Abstract
What wider lessons can be drawn from a single impact evaluation study? This article examines how case study and source selection contribute to useful generalisation. Practical suggestions for making these decisions are drawn from a set of qualitative impact studies. Generalising about impact is a deliberative process of building, testing and refining useful theories about how change happens. To serve this goal, purposive selection can support more credible generalisation than random selection by systematically and transparently drawing upon prior knowledge of variation in actions, contexts, and outcomes to test theory against diverse, deviant and anomalous cases.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 150-160 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Development in Practice |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 20 Oct 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Feb 2021 |
Funding
The original design and development of the QuIP was funded by research grant ES/J018090/1 jointly from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The paper was made possible by all those who contributed to QuIP studies, as acknowledged in Copestake, Morsink, and Remnant (2019). Gary Goertz, Steve Powell and Fiona Remnant also commented on an earlier draft. The author is a Director and co-founder of Bath Social and Development Research, a non-profit company set up, under licence to the University of Bath, to promote better evaluation through adaptation and use of the QuIP.
Keywords
- Aid–Monitoring and evaluation, Aid effectiveness, Accountability
- Methods
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Development
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James Copestake
- Department of Social & Policy Sciences - Professor
- Institute for Policy Research (IPR)
- Centre for Qualitative Research
Person: Research & Teaching, Core staff