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HI Mandy, I am looking forward to any responses on your post. I am also pleased to make contact with a fellow realist PhD student in NZ. I am at AUT University in Auckland. Thought I would mention to any fellow ANZACS that AUT University has invited Dr. Gill Westhorp to visit us in October 27-29th this year. She will be running a couple of workshops on realist methods here in Auckland. I am just finalising the details and will advertise on the listserv soon. From my perspective in health and rehabilitation I agree that realist approaches could benefit from having a higher profile in NZ which is why I am really excited about Gill's up and coming visit. Will keep you posted. My email is [log in to unmask] if anyone wants details in the mean time. Cheers Caroline ________________________________ From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Mandy McGirr [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 10 August 2015 14:12 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Defining mechanisms as processes? What Realist findings look like? PhD newbie questions Hi all – here comes a long time lurker into the light, in search of a sounding board! I’m one of a few PhD guinea pigs experimenting with the Realist Approach in New Zealand. Hopefully I’ve framed the following to be useful to other PhDers and Realist newbies. I’m seeking feedback to check my understanding of ‘mechanisms’, especially how to describe them as part of findings. I have written some statements rather than all questions in the hope that it’s easier for others to affirm, propose amendments, or debate the accuracy of these statements as a discussion thread. I’m attempting to produce a realist or perhaps a hybridized realist inquiry into interventions to improve youth employability (if not also employment as an easier to measure, shorter run outcome) - with a focus on them working for certain ‘at risk’ subgroups. Question 1) Can’t the terms process and mechanism be used interchangeably, so long as their same meaning is explicitly defined in a thesis, and so long as the importance of them to Realist methods of inquiry is explained? I only mean interaction processes – i.e. the types of processes through which a research subject engages with other objects, including policies and people, as part of context. So this only counts processes that comprise a human perception-action component and that accordingly generate varied outcomes. I’m asking partly because the word mechanism confuses some who are unfamiliar with Pawson & co’s version of a Realist Approach. I hear mechanisms may also be defined slightly differently in other versions of realism. Few potential New Zealand readers will know anything about the Realist Approach. So is there any problem with me defining mechanisms as: ‘a generalisable, context-dependent and motivation-dependent interaction process, through which outcomes of interest are partly generated (or strongly influenced?)’ to provide conceptual scaffolding for non-realist readers? For example, my research question could ask: What can be clarified about key processes that shape individual ‘employability’ and employment/unemployment outcomes; particularly for youth populations and with a focus on vocational and ‘at risk’ youth subgroup outcome patterns? How is the variation in youth outcomes, as subgroup patterns, explained by certain types of intervention and/or context conditions affecting those processes? By the way - improvement in individual ‘employability status’ may be defined and studied as a harder to measure, long run outcome pattern of interest - for which improvements in an individual’s employment outcomes over time are treated as one of a few key employability status/outcome indicators. A Rough Theory section proposes that employment outcomes, and improvements in individual states of employability (based on theorised indicators), could simultaneously be evaluated as intertwined outcome objectives. Question 2) When you describe mechanisms as research findings, don’t they need to comprise mechanism statements? I.e. they must explain a mechanism’s relevance to a set of outcomes - then also describe something about why, for which subgroup/s, or how at least one other context condition is relevant to understanding an outcome pattern that emerges from that mechanism (interaction process)? So a mechanism could be summarised as say a 1-3 word label - whereas a mechanism finding must comprise a full sentence statement distinguishing something about context conditions affecting the outcome patterns emerging from that mechanism, and/or affecting an intervention's workability in turn. Said another way - isn’t it true that a complete mechanism statement/finding must distinguish and relate at least one Context variable to how a Mechanism works, and to an Outcome pattern in turn? Whereas a mechanism on its own can be summarised as say a 1-3 word label (e.g. Recruitment and Selection Mechanisms as being relevant to employment). I realise the above may be nit-picking but it helps to visualise what comprehensive Realist type ‘findings’ look like before trying to produce them. Many thanks in advance for anyone who wants to add their two cents to any of the above screeds! Regards Mandy McGirr PhD researcher School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand