Why Do Practitioners Need to Know About Research Methods?

by Drs. Dahlia Remler and Gregg Van Ryzin

See the video interview with Drs. Remler and Van Ryzin to learn more about their approach and experience with real-world research. Use the code SAGE30 for a discount when you order the the third edition of Research Methods in Practice from SAGE.

Often practitioners—such as administrators, clinicians, politicians, or business people—think of research methods as only for ivory tower professors who publish obscure articles readable only by other likeminded academics. In our data-rich and evidence-seeking world, however, nothing could be further from the truth.

We teach students who are practitioners in public administration, policy, education, health care, international affairs, criminal justice and other applied fields—and they have shown us why social research methods are important in virtually any career today. During or after class (sometimes years after), our students often relate to us some version of, “I’m so glad we learned X, because it really helped me do Y.” (For privacy reasons we will be a bit vague on the settings and details.)

Several students described how learning about measurement empowered them in discussions of their organization’s performance goals. They could articulate how goals missed key components of the organization’s mission. In some cases, they pushed for new performance measures. In other cases, they helped avoid excessive effort on measures that could lead the organization astray.

One student described how her organization wanted to find out how to recruit new members and so decided to survey current members. She pointed out that this was not really the population they needed to learn about, just the one that was most convenient to survey. So she suggested another approach to better get at a target population of potential new members.

Another former student described trying to revise what different administrative databases included and in what form. By framing that question as a measurement one—what did they want to measure in order to address key organizational goals—they could decide what to measure, how to “clean” and maintain variables, what “keys” (merging variables) were critical. And it made a difference to fulfilling their mission for years to come. Another tick for the value of training in measurement.

One former student emailed to say how others in her organization, including higher ups, ascribed revenue increases to a recent policy change. She pointed to another change in the broader environment occurring at the same time as a plausible alternative explanation, and her bosses were impressed. Another former student described listening to colleagues at work interpret differences across elementary schools as being about the quality of school leadership. He objected to this interpretation, however, and highlighted how greater financial resources both helped hire that leadership and provided other resources (a common cause explanation). Training in causation and causal inference—and especially the habit of thinking of different causal explanations—made the difference for them.

One student of ours had an idea for a new way of helping clients. He was able to develop what we would call a quasi-experiment to see the effects that did not disrupt operations in any practical way and made use of his knowledge of how clients came to them. The evidence impressed those higher up and lead to a change in practice.

One health care administrator, while still a student, described being at a meeting discussing some research brought in as relevant and said something like, “before this course, I would have sat silent and uncomprehending, feeling that this was not for me. This time I understood the discussion and its relevance to us. I was even able to contribute about what I thought did and did not apply to us.” We heard from many students that they were empowered to understand a whole new world of research studies—and that those studies were truly relevant to them.

And we cannot count how many students said that they really knew how to write effective survey instruments that served their purposes. In the past, they said, they and others conducted surveys at work but the information they gathered just wasn’t that useful.

All that is just from the students who did not become analysts or researchers. Others found new careers as analysts, both inside and outside their current workplaces.

We wrote our textbook, Research Methods in Practice, for students like ours—practitioners who work in the real world. And we have revised every edition, especially our most recent third edition, based on our interactions with our many practice-oriented students. We hope that all readers see how research methods are important for everyone.

---