CECAN Fellowship: Exploring innovative approaches to establish causality for a policy operating in a complex multi-system environment
I am currently designing an evaluation that attempts to understand the impact of the policy ‘Condition A1’, which requires higher education providers to submit an access and participation plan. The desired impact of the policy is to improve equality of opportunity for higher education students across the sector. We have established that insufficient criteria are met to undertake quasi experimental methods and we have adopted a theory-based contribution analysis approach. Part of the challenge is that equality of opportunity is linked to a wide range of different student characteristics (for example disability, ethnicity, free school meals) and each of those different characteristics operate in their own complex system. In order to understand any attribution to our policy of positive outcomes for these students a lot of resource is required in order to understand all the influencing variables within each system. Our current thinking is to undertake contribution analysis deep-dives for up to five student characteristics, but I would like to explore and test our methodology/ alternative methodologies with experts to ensure it can robustly explore causality.
About Amy
Amy is an experienced evaluation professional with over 13 years’ experience working on a wide range of complex mixed-method evaluations and research projects. She is currently an Evaluation Manager at the Office for Students where she takes a leading role in designing and delivering evaluations to understand the effectiveness of higher education policy. Prior to her current role, she worked in consultancy where she supported a range of national and international public and private sector clients to explore the social, environmental and economic impact of their work. She specialises in theory-based and qualitative methods and is passionate about the need for evidence-driven decision-making and how to explore and consider complexity in effective and efficient ways. She is also highly experienced in facilitation and bringing together diverse stakeholders around evaluative thinking and learning, ensuring her projects influence policy and lead to change.
