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Hello Everyone

Where RE researchers struggle with identifying and differentiating Context and Mechanism, here I am struggling with the outcomes!! 
What are the outcomes in RE? Is it the outcomes of the program being studied (outcome for which the program was developed) or is it the outcomes that the researcher wants to study? 

For eg. I am conducting RE of the outreach model of service delivery to provide family planning in rural areas. Outreach model was developed with the goal to increase availability and uptake of family planning services in rural areas (outcome of the project).
Through my PhD, I want to 
1. understand why they chose outreach to provide services
2. evaluate its effectiveness in terms of context and mechanism as understood by the senior managers i.e. how the outreach model would trigger mechanisms in specific contextual conditions that contributes to the outcomes
3. understand how, why, for whom and under what conditions the outreach model is expected to work according to senior managers

I conducted FGD with the senior managers to understand factors that led to the design of the outreach, who benefits from the outreach, how do they ensure that the services are acceptable to the users. 

I have two major concerns/questions:
1. When I develop CMOC for my first research aim (understand why they chose outreach to provide services), Is Outreach the outcome? Eg Context is 'no service provision because of dormant public health facilities in rural areas and absence of doctors' Mechanism is 'organization wants to increase the availability of services in rural areas by bringing services closer to them therefore they get their mobile van with doctors to public health facilities' and therefore the 'Outcome that Outreach is developed. Am I right in my thinking? 
I am unsure of what outcomes to match them with!! Is it the program's outcome of increasing availability, improving uptake and providing quality services OR is it my outcome of 'Outreach is born'
2. In my other research questions, outreach model is either the context or mechanism. Is it okay to move between context, mechanism and outcome when I develop multiple CMOC for my different questions?

I have read many papers on RE but I still fail to figure out how the researchers identify the outcomes!! I am stuck!!

Any clarity would be much appreciated!! 

Thank you !

Cheers
Monisha

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