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Tips to Conducting an Experimental Study in a “Real World” Setting: The Amachi Texas Experience

Tips to Conducting an Experimental Study in a “Real World” Setting: The Amachi Texas Experience. Heather J. Clawson, PhD Principal Investigator October 27, 2008. Tip #1. Be proactive

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Tips to Conducting an Experimental Study in a “Real World” Setting: The Amachi Texas Experience

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  1. Tips to Conducting an Experimental Study in a “Real World” Setting: The Amachi Texas Experience Heather J. Clawson, PhD Principal Investigator October 27, 2008

  2. Tip #1 • Be proactive • What do you want to know/learn about your program? What information do you need? What questions do you want answered? • How will this information benefit you in the short-term? Long-term? • What can you do yourselves vs. what do you need help with? • How do you make this happen? What resources do you need and where will you get them?

  3. Tip #2 • Engage everyone early and often • Know your stakeholders (funders, community leaders, staff, clients, etc.) • Take a top down and bottom up approach • Reach out to everyone involved from CEOs to front-line staff to administrators to clients served • Pilot, pilot, pilot

  4. Tip #3 • Ask questions, listen, and validate concerns • What are our concerns? What keeps us up at night? • Evaluators/researchers ask questions of practitioners and visa versa • There are no “dumb” questions • All concerns are valid • There may not always be an answer to a question; work together to create an answer

  5. Tip #4 • Be willing to compromise • What are the must haves or the deal breakers? • What can we let go or let “loose”? • What will make this work for all parties? • What can we live with?

  6. Tip #5 • Insist on open and honest communication • Establish a communication plan • Direct access to those on the ground by the evaluation team is essential and visa versa • Everyone has a voice and needs to use it • Hiding the truth won’t make the problem go away…get it out in the open before it blows up

  7. Tip #6 • Provide ongoing support and assistance • Be available and willing to “travel”; sometimes face-to-face is the best approach • Assign a point of contact and a backup • Develop tips and tools to help facilitate the evaluation process • Recognize efforts and provide appropriate compensation

  8. Tip #7 • Share information often (good or bad) • Establish key milestones for reporting • Provide timely feedback and discussion (What are the implications? What midcourse adjustments are needed?) • Utilize results (interim and final) • Disseminate, disseminate, disseminate

  9. Tip #8 • Celebrate successes (small or large) • Celebrate partnerships! • Celebrate early accomplishments! • Celebrate results!

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