Abstract
Background and aim: Complex programs, with multiple components and many stakeholders involved, are rather the norm than the exception in the field of integrated care. Experimental designs, with a focus on íf programs work, often disappointingly fail to open the black box about ‘why and how’ complex programs work. With a focus on ‘what works, for whom, why, and under what circumstances’, Realist Evaluation (RE) offers a promising research paradigm to evaluate such programs in a transferable way. Furthermore, RE is highly participative: active involvement of all program stakeholders is key to unearth their perceptions about program functioning. The use of RE is growing steadily in social sciences. However, successful adoption of RE in practice may be challenging, as research in general is still largely dominated by ‘experimental thinking’ and it requires the active participation of a range of stakeholders. Therefore, we have designed a workshop called ‘Uncovering the black box: the potential of Realist Evaluation’. In this workshop, we not only aim to create awareness amongst fellow researchers of the potential of RE, but also gather insights into how these adoption challenges can be overcome to successfully use RE in research.
Who is it for? Our workshop is for everyone interested in thinking beyond the traditional golden standard of randomized controlled trials, and broaden their knowledge of research design. Both researchers conducting studies and those participating in studies (e.g. all kinds of stakeholders) can find and make this workshop valuable.
Workshop program: We will start with a short general introduction about RE, combined with an online question to the audience to gather their first impressions of RE (15 minutes). Then we will provide some example projects that use an RE approach (10 minutes). Next, a world-café method will be followed. This means that the audience will be divided into three groups, where each group discusses a different topic at a roundtable, being: advantages and opportunities (i.e. how RE could help you in your research), barriers (to apply RE to your research projects), and solutions to overcome the barriers. Each group has 15 minutes to discuss the topic in question at their table and write down their findings. Discussions are guided by the workshop organizers, who function as moderators. When time is up, all groups move on to the next roundtable with one of the other topics where they can add up their findings to those that were already put on paper. After 45 minutes, all groups discussed three topics. Finally, each moderator will give a plenary presentation of the findings of each topic, and the audience can share some final thoughts (15 minutes). We will end with a 5 minutes closing, asking the audience about what they found most striking during the workshop and if they think they would apply RE (more) in future.