Ray Pawson
Biographic Data
| ID | 256834 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ray Pawson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ray |
| FAMILY NAME | Pawson |
| SIGNATURE | PAWSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leeds |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5892-9849 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 464 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The coronavirus response
Science has a mixed record when it comes to predicting the future. Engineers build bridges based on foreknowledge of the forces that they are likely to encounter – and their constructions tend to withstand the test of time. Predicting the future course of epidemics and building intervention to contain them are much more precarious. And yet simulation models produced in prestigious centres for mathematical biology have played a significant role in…
The Realist Foundations of Evidence-Based Medicine
Providing effective and preferred care closer to home
Intermediate care is one of the number of service delivery models intended to integrate care and provide enhanced health and social care services closer to home, especially to reduce reliance on acute care hospital beds. In order for health and social care practitioners, service managers and commissioners to make informed decisions, it is vital to understand how to implement the admission avoidance and early supported discharge components of inte…
The ersatz realism of critical realism
Exploring complex causal pathways between urban renewal, health and health inequality using a theory-driven realist approach
Do reviews of healthcare interventions teach us how to improve healthcare systems
Planners, managers and policy makers in modern health services are not without ingenuity - they will always try, try and try again. They face deep-seated or 'wicked' problems, which have complex roots in the labyrinthine structures though which healthcare is delivered. Accordingly, the interventions devised to deal with such stubborn problems usually come in the plural. Many different reforms are devised to deal with a particular stumbling block,…
The Science of Evaluation
Preface: The Armchair Methodologist and the Jobbing Researcher PART ONE: PRECURSORS AND PRINCIPLES Precursors: From the Library of Ray Pawson First Principles: A Realist Diagnostic Workshop PART TWO: THE CHALLENGE OF COMPLEXITY - DROWNING OR WAVING? A Complexity Checklist Contested Complexity Informed Guesswork: The Realist Response to Complexity PART THREE: TOWARDS EVALUATION SCIENCE Invisible Mechanisms I: The Long Road to Behavioural Change In…
Rameses publication standards
BACKGROUND: There is growing interest in realist synthesis as an alternative systematic review method. This approach offers the potential to expand the knowledge base in policy-relevant areas - for example, by explaining the success, failure or mixed fortunes of complex interventions. No previous publication standards exist for reporting realist syntheses. This standard was developed as part of the RAMESES (Realist And MEta-narrative Evidence Syn…
Rameses publication standards
Public Opinion and Policy‐making
‘Evidence‐based policy’ often uses systematic reviews of existing research on the effectiveness of interventions to provide guidance for policymakers. When applied to gauging public support for interventions, there are two stumbling blocks – opinion data on contentious issues are volatile and prone to measurement error, and the barometer of public opinion should be set for the present rather than reflecting sentiments of other times. Despite thes…
Realist RCTs of complex interventions - An oxymoron
The precautionary principle and evidence-based policy
The precautionary principle recommends, in the face of pressing but unquantifiable threats, that decision makers should not wait indefinitely for the backing of evidence. As such, it represents another potential challenge to the turbulent fortunes of evidence-based policy. Through four contrasting case studies, this paper examines this challenge and formulates a preliminary model of the role of the precautionary principle in evidence-based policy…
A realist diagnostic workshop
The realist approach can now be said to be part of the repertoire of evaluation methods. There has been a corresponding shift in methodological focus. Polemical thrust and counter-thrust about the realist contribution as compared to that of other evaluative approaches such as randomized trials and meta-analysis has given way to closer examination of its practice ‘on the ground’. This article seeks to make a contribution to the literature on how t…
Protocols, policy making and scientific progress
Petticrew, Chalabi and Jones have made some of the most vibrant and erudite contributions to the methodology of healthcare research. Their ‘To RCT or not to RCT’1 paper marks another significant contribution. I recommended it for publication in the journal—adding as an aside in my referee's comments that I happened to disagree with every word. The editors have been kind enough to offer me a little space to air these thoughts. Petticrew and collea…
From the library of
Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, Unknown Unknowns
The authors present a case study examining the potential for policies to be “evidence-based.” To what extent is it possible to say that a decision to implement a complex social intervention is warranted on the basis of available empirical data? The case chosen is whether there is sufficient evidence to justify banning smoking in cars carrying children. The numerous assumptions underpinning such legislation are elicited, the weight and validity of…
The Today Programme’s Contribution to Evidence-based Policy
How Do You Modernize a Health Service? A Realist Evaluation of Whole‐Scale Transformation in London
Context: Large‐scale, whole‐systems interventions in health care require imaginative approaches to evaluation that go beyond assessing progress against predefined goals and milestones. This project evaluated a major change effort in inner London, funded by a charitable donation of approximately $21 million, which spanned four large health care organizations, covered three services (stroke, kidney, and sexual health), and sought to “modernize” the…
Invisible Mechanisms
The mandate for evaluators to ‘look inside the black box’ of an intervention has become a familiar and heeded cry. So whether it is process evaluators with their logic maps, or theories-of-change researchers with their intervention stepping stones, or realists with their context, mechanism outcome configurations, searchlights have been aimed into the gloom. So much so that a contemporary sounding riposte, ‘been in there, done for that’ might be d…
Evidence-based Policy
Realist Methodology
A multitude of syntheses
English This article addresses the synthesis and use of research evidence to inform policy and practice. Reviews of the evidence base in many fields have formed a crucial bridge between research, policy making and practice. Systematic review, in conjunction with meta-analysis, has become an established methodology for locating, selecting, appraising and quantitatively synthesising research evidence according to an explicit and reproducible method…
Digging for Nuggets
A good systematic review is often likened to the pre‐flight instrument check—ensuring a plane is airworthy before take‐off. By analogy, research synthesis follows a disciplined, formalized, transparent and highly routinized sequence of steps in order that its findings can be considered trustworthy—before being launched on the policy community. The most characteristic aspect of that schedule is the appraise‐then‐analyse sequence. The research qual…
Evidence-Based Policy
In this important book, Ray Pawson examines the recent spread of evidence-based policy across the Western world. He examines the methodological assumptions that lie behind this drive for government departments, academic research projects and NGOs to adopt an evidence-based approach
Realist review - a new method of systematic review designed for complex policy interventions
Evidence-based policy is a dominant theme in contemporary public services but the practical realities and challenges involved in using evidence in policy-making are formidable. Part of the problem is one of complexity. In health services and other public services, we are dealing with complex social interventions which act on complex social systems-things like league tables, performance measures, regulation and inspection, or funding reforms. Thes…
Evidence-based Policy
Evaluation research is tortured by time constraints. The policy cycle revolves more quickly than the research cycle, with the result that `real time' evaluations often have little influence on policy making. As a result, the quest for evidence-based policy (EBP) has turned increasingly to systematic reviews of the results of previous inquiries in the relevant policy domain. However, this shifting of the temporal frame for evaluation is in itself …
Theorizing the Interview
L'A. se demande s'il est possible de theoriser la methode et la pratique de l'interview. Il estime que l'on doit aborder cette question de maniere pluraliste et que l'on doit recourir, en ce domaine, a la fois a une approche de type structuree et a une approche a caractere non-structuree. Il considere que les sociologues ont besoin a la fois de methodes qualitatives et de methodes quantitatives parce qu'elles apportent au chercheur des informatio…
A realist diagnostic workshop
The realist approach can now be said to be part of the repertoire of evaluation methods. There has been a corresponding shift in methodological focus. Polemical thrust and counter-thrust about the realist contribution as compared to that of other evaluative approaches such as randomized trials and meta-analysis has given way to closer examination of its practice ‘on the ground’. This article seeks to make a contribution to the literature on how t…
Evidence-based Policy
Evaluation research is tortured by time constraints. The policy cycle revolves quicker than the research cycle, with the result that `real time' evaluations often have little influence on policy making. As a result, the quest for evidence-based policy has turned increasingly to systematic reviews of the results of previous inquiries in the relevant policy domain. However, this shifting of the temporal frame for evaluation is in itself no guarante…
Social Researching
Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, Unknown Unknowns
The authors present a case study examining the potential for policies to be “evidence-based.” To what extent is it possible to say that a decision to implement a complex social intervention is warranted on the basis of available empirical data? The case chosen is whether there is sufficient evidence to justify banning smoking in cars carrying children. The numerous assumptions underpinning such legislation are elicited, the weight and validity of…
Exploring complex causal pathways between urban renewal, health and health inequality using a theory-driven realist approach
A Measure for Measures
In this major textbook Ray Pawson gives the student a comprehensive introduction to the methods debate in empirical sociology, providing a challenging manifesto for the development of methods in the future. This book should be of interest to students of social theory, applied sociology, sociology of knowledge
Evidence and Policy and Naming and Shaming
The debate on the potential of evidence-based policy is now in full flow, though opinions differ on whether we have reached zenith or nadir in our capacity to transform public data into public service. Clearly, we are not short of 'evidence'; there is a plethora of programme evaluators and policy analysts out there, and a surfeit of their publications - official, academic and grey. What is at issue is the method of synthesizing that evidence, a r…
Digging for Nuggets
A good systematic review is often likened to the pre‐flight instrument check—ensuring a plane is airworthy before take‐off. By analogy, research synthesis follows a disciplined, formalized, transparent and highly routinized sequence of steps in order that its findings can be considered trustworthy—before being launched on the policy community. The most characteristic aspect of that schedule is the appraise‐then‐analyse sequence. The research qual…
Middle-range realism
This paper proposes a liaison -'middle-range realism'-between two long standing explanatory strategies in sociology- 'middle-range theory' and 'realist social theory'. Each offers what the other lacks. Middle-range theory carries an acute sense of the function of theory within empirical inquiry but has left undeveloped any notion of its appropriate explanatory form. Realist social theory has propositional precision but has been unable, in the mos…
Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory
This contribution is based on the second plenary address given at the 5th biennial meeting of the European Evaluation Society, 12 October 2002 in Seville, Spain
What Works in Evaluation Research
British criminology has evolved its own distinctive division of labour. Theorists theorize, ethnographers empathize, statisticians soothsay, and so on. Unlike other areas of scholarship, this arrangement allows little time or gain for anyone bent on fundamental reflection on the nature of criminological research. Whilst (thankfully) this has had the effect of avoiding the unproductive epistemological brawls which characterize neighbouring discipl…
Social Research in Developing Countries
Realist RCTs of complex interventions - An oxymoron
The Perilous Road from Evidence to Policy
Comprehensive reviews of the available research are generally considered to be the cornerstone of contemporary efforts to establish 'evidence-based policy'. This article provides an examination of the potential of this stratagem, using the case study of 'mentoring' programmes. Mentoring initiatives (and allied schemes such as 'coaching', 'counselling', 'peer education' and so on) are to be found in every corner of public policy. Researchers have …
Caring Communities, Paradigm Polemics, Design Debates
In a previous issue of this journal (Vol. 3, no. 2) David Farrington introduced—‘in the interests of stimulating discussions’—an outline research design for Evaluating a Community Crime Prevention Program. This article takes up the challenge, offers a critique of his ‘quasi-experimental’ approach and insists that such programs are better evaluated using designs based on ‘scientific realist’ principles. The paper also draws attention to benefits o…
The ersatz realism of critical realism
Desperate Measures
Invisible Mechanisms
The mandate for evaluators to ‘look inside the black box’ of an intervention has become a familiar and heeded cry. So whether it is process evaluators with their logic maps, or theories-of-change researchers with their intervention stepping stones, or realists with their context, mechanism outcome configurations, searchlights have been aimed into the gloom. So much so that a contemporary sounding riposte, ‘been in there, done for that’ might be d…
Quality and Quantity, Agency and Structure, Mechanism and Context, Dons and Cons 1
Qualité et Quantité. Agence et Structure. Mécanisme et Contexte. Mandarins et Magouilleurs. Cet article fournit une vue d'ensemble et souffle de la vie dans le 'débat' sur les méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives en recherches sociales en renversant la notion que les termes quantitative et 'qualitative' fournissent un cadre organisateur pour la recherche. Au contraire, Il argumente que ces étiquette ont à faire avec une distinction essentiellem…
Half-Truths about Bias
The coronavirus response
Science has a mixed record when it comes to predicting the future. Engineers build bridges based on foreknowledge of the forces that they are likely to encounter – and their constructions tend to withstand the test of time. Predicting the future course of epidemics and building intervention to contain them are much more precarious. And yet simulation models produced in prestigious centres for mathematical biology have played a significant role in…
Realistic evaluation bloodlines
The precautionary principle and evidence-based policy
The precautionary principle recommends, in the face of pressing but unquantifiable threats, that decision makers should not wait indefinitely for the backing of evidence. As such, it represents another potential challenge to the turbulent fortunes of evidence-based policy. Through four contrasting case studies, this paper examines this challenge and formulates a preliminary model of the role of the precautionary principle in evidence-based policy…
Empiricist Explanatory Strategies
Shorter Notices
Desperate Measures
Language and Measurement
Coxon has charged that my discussion of the linguistic base to sociological measurement misrepresents the methodological presuppositions of his project on occupational cognition.l In reply I would like to counter the charge of misrepresentation, restate the source of our disagreement, challenge his advocacy of methodological pluralism in the study of social cognition and, finally, examine the broader consequences of this exchange for measurement …
Social Research in Developing Countries
On the Level
Social Researching
Half-Truths about Bias
The Debate on Classes
A Measure for Measures
In this major textbook Ray Pawson gives the student a comprehensive introduction to the methods debate in empirical sociology, providing a challenging manifesto for the development of methods in the future. This book should be of interest to students of social theory, applied sociology, sociology of knowledge
What Works in Evaluation Research
British criminology has evolved its own distinctive division of labour. Theorists theorize, ethnographers empathize, statisticians soothsay, and so on. Unlike other areas of scholarship, this arrangement allows little time or gain for anyone bent on fundamental reflection on the nature of criminological research. Whilst (thankfully) this has had the effect of avoiding the unproductive epistemological brawls which characterize neighbouring discipl…
Quality and Quantity, Agency and Structure, Mechanism and Context, Dons and Cons 1
Qualité et Quantité. Agence et Structure. Mécanisme et Contexte. Mandarins et Magouilleurs. Cet article fournit une vue d'ensemble et souffle de la vie dans le 'débat' sur les méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives en recherches sociales en renversant la notion que les termes quantitative et 'qualitative' fournissent un cadre organisateur pour la recherche. Au contraire, Il argumente que ces étiquette ont à faire avec une distinction essentiellem…
President's Report
What's Crucial in Evaluation Research
Beware researchers proclaiming an innocence in respect of methodological principles. Every nut, bolt and washer in a laboratory instrument is the carrier of epistemological assumptions. Every aspect of design, data collection and analysis in social research bears a commitment to a particular model of social explanation. This paper examines Bennett's reconstruction of his own research, detects some wishful thinking and seeks to extract from the de…
Theorizing the Interview
L'A. se demande s'il est possible de theoriser la methode et la pratique de l'interview. Il estime que l'on doit aborder cette question de maniere pluraliste et que l'on doit recourir, en ce domaine, a la fois a une approche de type structuree et a une approche a caractere non-structuree. Il considere que les sociologues ont besoin a la fois de methodes qualitatives et de methodes quantitatives parce qu'elles apportent au chercheur des informatio…
An Introduction to Scientific Realist Evaluation
Caring Communities, Paradigm Polemics, Design Debates
In a previous issue of this journal (Vol. 3, no. 2) David Farrington introduced—‘in the interests of stimulating discussions’—an outline research design for Evaluating a Community Crime Prevention Program. This article takes up the challenge, offers a critique of his ‘quasi-experimental’ approach and insists that such programs are better evaluated using designs based on ‘scientific realist’ principles. The paper also draws attention to benefits o…
Cook-Book Methods and Disastrous Recipes
Realistic Evaluation
Middle-range realism
This paper proposes a liaison -'middle-range realism'-between two long standing explanatory strategies in sociology- 'middle-range theory' and 'realist social theory'. Each offers what the other lacks. Middle-range theory carries an acute sense of the function of theory within empirical inquiry but has left undeveloped any notion of its appropriate explanatory form. Realist social theory has propositional precision but has been unable, in the mos…
Realistic evaluation bloodlines
Books Reviewed
Evidence-based Policy
Evaluation research is tortured by time constraints. The policy cycle revolves quicker than the research cycle, with the result that `real time' evaluations often have little influence on policy making. As a result, the quest for evidence-based policy has turned increasingly to systematic reviews of the results of previous inquiries in the relevant policy domain. However, this shifting of the temporal frame for evaluation is in itself no guarante…
Evidence-based Policy
Evaluation research is tortured by time constraints. The policy cycle revolves more quickly than the research cycle, with the result that `real time' evaluations often have little influence on policy making. As a result, the quest for evidence-based policy (EBP) has turned increasingly to systematic reviews of the results of previous inquiries in the relevant policy domain. However, this shifting of the temporal frame for evaluation is in itself …
Evidence and Policy and Naming and Shaming
The debate on the potential of evidence-based policy is now in full flow, though opinions differ on whether we have reached zenith or nadir in our capacity to transform public data into public service. Clearly, we are not short of 'evidence'; there is a plethora of programme evaluators and policy analysts out there, and a surfeit of their publications - official, academic and grey. What is at issue is the method of synthesizing that evidence, a r…
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (26 works) · Computer Science (24 works) · Epistemology (22 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Evaluation and Performance Assessment (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Medicine (13 works) · Economics (12 works) · Psychology (12 works)