What works when sample sizes are small? Understanding policy-makers’ evaluation needs in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors

This project will explore proposed new approaches to impact evaluation. It will pay particular attention to so-called ‘small n’ and mixed method approaches. It will assess their philosophical foundations and their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the challenges facing evaluators seeking to explore the effectiveness of emergent and small scale interventions operating in dynamic and complex policy contexts. Further, this scholarship will explore the usefulness of different approaches with reference to two case study impact evaluations of small programmes delivered in the voluntary community and social enterprise sectors (VCSE).

Aims and objectives

Impact evaluation aims to draw conclusions as to the effectiveness of specified interventions, projects or programmes, in terms of outcomes of concern to their originators, that are justified on the basis of the appropriateness of design and methods deployed. The evaluation design chosen is tailored to the attributes of the intervention, project or programme; the questions posed by the originators of the intervention, project or programme; and the setting or context in which the activities concerned take place (Stern et al., 2012) subject to constraints such as timescales, data availability and resources (Bamberger, Rugh, & Mabry, 2012).

The project will be based in the Policy Evaluation Research Unit located within the Department of Sociology, and the successful student will also receive support from, and be expected to work closely with, colleagues in the Centre for Policy Modelling based in MMU’s Business School.

The supervisory team for this project will be Prof. Stephen Morris, Prof Christopher Fox, and Prof Bruce Edmonds

The closing date for applications is 31st January 2017.
To apply, please use the form on our web page: http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/postgraduate-research-course/ - please note, CVs alone will not be accepted.

For informal enquiries, please contact: [Email Address Removed]
Please quote the Project Reference in all correspondence.