"Improving the Transition from Basic Efficacy Research to Effectiveness Studies: Methodological Issues and Procedures" by Gregory N. Clarke

jstengel — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:16:16 GMT

This article was inspired by Weisz, Weiss, and Donenberg’s (1992) look at positive child psychotherapy effects in research suggesting “…a key task for researchers [is]….identifying those proper conditions under which effects of child therapy may be optimized.” The authors suggest controlled methodological experiment changes to enhance generalizeability in effectiveness trials in clinical/service delivery settings. It calls for including methodologies to transfer desirable aspects of efficacy research (e.g., greater independent variable control) into combined efficacy-effectiveness trials. The five broad changes to research/design methods/procedures are summarized in the last two paragraphs below.

Modified and/or extended research methods and procedures are proposed to bridge the current generalizeability gap between original “purist” laboratory efficacy research and the real-world’s “dirtier” effectiveness trials being replicated in clinics and service settings; this paper illuminates a thick line existing between the laboratory research and field-replicated research. In addition to a sample of five research methods/procedural factors that contribute to a lab-real world practice generalizeability gap/chasm (addressed by this paper), Clarke mentions other factors demanding research-design attention: therapist training; monitoring and protocol compliance; multiple therapist roles; participant recruitment methods; professional vs. nonprofessional therapists; measurement technology; participant-therapist-assessor masking to therapy condition; service setting; and participant assignment.

The five research design methods/procedures covered by this paper are summarized according to their real world application problem(a) and the author’s recommended modified research design solution(b). [1] Degree of therapy structure – (a) the problem is implementation: clinicians won’t show fidelity to regimented, manualized treatment scripts as they too often resist “rigid” or uni-modality interventions in favor of being “eclectic” with their clients on a session-by-session basis. (b) Original efficacy study researchers should provide stratified study designs of minimal protocol deviation vs. minor-moderate protocol deviation vs. non-manualized replication. [2] Integrated vs. isolated services – (a) original efficacy studies typically target one disorder, diagnosis, or problem domain; also, they typically provide one intervention under study. This “insularity” is not feasible in community treatment settings, school clinics, etc. (b) Design an integrated intervention regime of varying multiple research-based intervention “tracks” across a variety of researched disorders. [3] Usual care vs. no-treatment or placebo-attention controls – (a) the falsity of these experimental control conditions is apparent since they do not reflect what typically happens to patients who are not provided treatment. Also, efficacy studies may incur higher drop-out rates among enforced no-treatment and waiting-list patients (introducing potential bias). (b) What some studies are doing already: provide randomized “usual care” as the controls (i.e., defined as minimal treatment), which more closely (and ethically) mirrors real world conditions.

[4] Sample representativeness, sample homogeneity vs. real world population heterogeneity – (a) efficacy research subjects may be very different from their community services counterparts—making the results highly suspect. The psychological and social services world is characterized by frequent instances of co-morbidity and patients receiving services from multiple providers, etc. (b) Apply a two-tiered participant recruitment strategy in efficacy studies (Clarke’s “donut model”): (1) one homogeneous sample constitutes the donut hole; another sample (2) constitutes an unselected, heterogeneous, co-morbid donut ring—using a factorial research design. [5] Treatment parameters of dosage, modality, location, implementation – (a & b) possibly the most important issue, this one continues to seek answers to questions put by legislators and policy-makers: Does psychotherapy work? Are patients with ____ better treated in inpatient or outpatient facilities? And at what costs? For how long? In groups or individual therapy, or both? Delivered by professionals or paraprofessionals? Etc. Thus Clarke is a strong proponent of treatment process research, where sub-studies are embedded within larger efficacy studies so as to better inform and represent the users of research findings.

Citation

Clarke, G.N.(1995). Improving the Transition from Basic Efficacy Research to Effectiveness Studies: Methodological Issues and Procedures. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(5): 718-725

Technology Transfer and Public Policy: A Review of Research and Theory

jstengel — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:20:17 GMT

The author provides an exhaustive review of technology transfer/diffusion through his own lens: i.e., a framework he calls the Contingent Effectiveness Model; it earns its name from the fact that there are multiple ways of defining transfer effectiveness (6 by Bozeman’s count). Before outlining the key factors in parsing out what constitutes innovation/technology transfer/diffusion, it should be noted that (1) Bozeman’s focus is mainly on public sector (university and government labs), and very little regarding private sector technology transfer research; and (2) it clearly represents “physical technology and its end products” more than, say, social science/technology and its “end products.”

Regardless, from both “hard” and “soft” technology vantage points, Bozeman’s article (and its inclusive model) is instrumental for any entity embarking on a technology/innovation enterprise; especially in terms of articulating with great clarity what the stakeholders are and are not proposing in very purposeful terms. Early in the paper, Bozeman depicts the anatomy of technology transfer with surgical precision by: (a) defining technology, (b) demarcating the technology object to be transferred, (c) giving insight to the natural instability of technology (which is always evolving), and (d) defining technology transfer itself.

Bozeman’s six effectiveness categories for demonstrating use of any technology-transfer object’s use include: (1) Opportunity Cost; 92) Scientific & Technical Human Capital; (3) Political; (4) Economic Development; (5) Market Impact; and (6) “Out-the-Door”. His model (and all supporting research cited) devolves into five interrelated factors which influence transfer effectiveness. Each of the five factors has its own unique set of characteristics (extrapolated by research reviews): (1) Transfer Agent; (2) Transfer Media; (3) Transfer Object; (4) Demand Environment; and (5) Transfer Recipient. Several explanatory tables support Bozeman’s model’s contentions with examples and highlighted focal points. Thus, this paper serves two objectives, as a relatively thorough review of supportive research on the one hand, and as a useful lens or filter for logic modeling of any venture ambitiously taking to task technology/innovation transfer. transfers from business service sectors to other industrial sectors. The RISE project deals with the roles of knowledge-intensive economic activities and of research and technology organizations within innovation systems. It stresses the importance of an anthropological interpretation of the role of services, service providers and the relationships between them. The INNOCULT project looked at National innovation systems, with a focus on institutional innovation. It stressed the role of cultural factors in national innovation systems, the role of culture in research and innovation networks, and the effect of internationalization on national innovation systems. UNIREG details the various roles of universities in producing and transmitting knowledge, as cultural agents, and as leading or facilitating agents in the regional and local governance systems. The KISINN project analyzes innovation processes at the institutional, spatial, organizational and strategic levels, and emphasizes the accumulation and circulation of knowledge and competence. Particular attention is devoted to the analysis of concrete; learning by interacting; processes in different countries, regions and sectors.

Citation

Bozeman, B.(2000). Technology Transfer and Public Policy: A Review of Research and Theory. Research Policy, 29: 627-655.

Search results matching tags 'Transfer of innovation' and 'Time Elements/Methods'

"Improving the Transition from Basic Efficacy Research to Effectiveness Studies: Methodological Issues and Procedures" by Gregory N. Clarke

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Technology Transfer and Public Policy: A Review of Research and Theory

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