The Utilization of Policy Analysis by State Agency Officials

Abstract

Findings from a 1988 survey of U.S. state officials working in the areas of hazardous wastes, economic development, welfare, and education suggest that these officials do not appear to rely heavily on policy analysis from research organizations or from university faculty; instead, they rely principally on policy advice from their peers in other state agencies, newspapers, their counterparts in federal agencies, and staff from the governors' office. In attempting to understand knowledge utilization, the study found that among the variables considered utilization of policy information is best explained by state contextual variables and user characteristics. That is, agency officials in wealthier, more conservative, moralistic states used policy analysis in their work more than officials in poorer, more traditional, liberal states. In addition, more experienced and better educated officials used policy advice less than inexperienced and less educated officials.

Connecting research and policy: how linkages support the use of research evidence in social policymaking

“…This reflects prior research findings, which observed that public sector agencies were often distrustful about relying on external sources of expertise, preferring to draw on internal expertise and analyses instead (Hall & Jennings 2010;Lester 1993). A survey item that provided some insight into the types of linkages policy officials reported engaging in was one that captured the importance policy officials personally placed on specific strategies or activities for obtaining research information.…”

“…Currently, as noted previously in this thesis, there is no universally accepted or widely adopted model for measuring the utilisation of research (Lester, 1993;Oh & Rich, 1996;Ouimet et al, 2010;Smith et al, 2011). The literature on the utilisation of academic research has, however, consistently suggested three broad types of use: instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic.…”

“…Useful research evidence products, the expertise to produce these, and important capabilities for interpreting and applying them, are frequently located in sources external to public sector agencies, such as universities, research centres and think tanks. This can be problematic for EBP, as public sector agencies have often been found to be distrustful about relying on external sources of expertise, preferring to use analyses generated internally instead (Hall & Jennings 2010;Lester 1993). …”

“…(Lester, 1993;Oh & Rich, 1996;Ouimet et al, 2010;Smith et al, 2011) As highlighted in chapter one, there are many ways that research utilisation can be understood. While there have been some efforts to develop a standardised tool for measuring research utilisation -most notably Knott and Wildavsky's (1980) scale, which incorporates instrumental, conceptual and symbolic uses of researchsuch tools have not been widely employed to date.…”

“…The scale was adopted by the project because it is considered to be reliable (Cherney & McGee 2011;Landry et al, 2001a;Landry et al, 2003;Lester & Wilds, 1990;Lester, 1993), and thus has been drawn upon as a measure of research use across several prior studies with both policy official and academics research subjects. This means that results from the analysis of data collected for this project can then potentially be compared with others that have adopted the scale (Cherney et al, 2012).…”