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

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

• Heather J. Clawson, PhD
• Principal Investigator
• October 27, 2008

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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?

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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

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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

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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?

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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 wont make the problem go
  awayget it out in the open before it blows up

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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

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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

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Tip 8

• Celebrate successes (small or large)
• Celebrate partnerships!
• Celebrate early accomplishments!
• Celebrate results!