Providing Credible Evidence For Singular Causal Claims

为单一因果关系的主张提供可靠的证据

• 批准号: AH/X006727/1
• 负责人: Nancy Cartwright
• 金额: $ 38.25万
• 依托单位: Durham University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX006727%2F1
• 关键词: Providing; Credible; Evidence; Singular; Causal

Our 1st research questions:What evidence helps predict if what you do will have the outcome you want-'Will doing X produce Y'?-or assess later if it has done so? Why does this count as evidence?These are questions about 'singular causation' (contrasted with causal generalisation). Current answers are scattered in different places, they tend not to be theoretically well-grounded and are often contradictory. Our analyses suggest this is because the relation we are trying to find evidence for is not well understood. So to answer our primary questions, we aim to develop a rich theory of singular causation:What's typically true when a cause succeeds (or not) in producing an outcome? Singular causation is a central concern of philosophy-one with serious practical significance. Understanding how it works is essential in judging in practice whether an intervention leads to desired outcomes. Our project aims to improve the theoretical and practical understanding of singular causation. From that we aim to produce a framework for cataloguing evidence for singular causal claims that can help policy planners and evaluators (eg heads of schools, evaluators of development projects, those charged with implementing new child-protection programmes) in predicting for their local setting if an intervention can be implemented and succeed there, or evaluating later if it has done so. We will use as a case study to test our ideas successes and failures in implementing the child protection programme Signs of Safety, whose Theory of Change includes wider systemic changes needed to support change in direct work with families. Munro has been conducting action research on its implementation in the UK and Ireland. There is also a body of research on its implementation and variable successes that we can use. A common problem is for the focus to be at the level of direct work with families without considering the organisational factors influencing front-line staff in ways that conflict with the work (eg recording requirements not matching the analytic structure of Signs of Safety; organisational messages giving lower priority to direct work with children than Signs of Safety specifies). Our study will produce guidance for senior managers to understand a fuller range of factors that may need changing. Similar implementation problems occur in other practice frameworks so the research will provide a general model of how to explore broader systems' influences.These broader systems are labelled 'mechanisms' in philosophy, 'context' in methodology, where context is seen as a complex system where causes of different types studied at different levels of analysis interweave. Several new research methods have been developed (eg the Context-Mechanism-Outcome model from 'realist evaluation'; new work on 'complex social systems'). But there is insufficient analysis of the different types of mechanism that play a role, types that call for different methods of investigation studied in different disciplines. We aim of to contribute to this debate by building on Cartwright's philosophical analysis of 3 types of causal mechanisms seen in philosophy and evidence-based policy research:o The step-by step process by which a cause produces its effectso The tendencies by which each step produces the nexto The underlying system that affords causal processes.Our project will explore what methods are suited to studying the different kinds of contribution each type of mechanism makes in order to construct templates for theoretically well-grounded 'evidence-role maps' for causal prediction and evaluation. These are maps charting the kinds of information relevant for evidencing singular causal claims and indicating the role each plays. Understanding the different roles that different bits of information plays is crucial in evaluating what information to collect, the risks of missing information, and the import of the evidence all told.

我们的第一个研究问题：什么证据有助于预测你所做的事情是否会产生你想要的结果-“做X会产生Y吗？”或稍后评估是否已这样做？为什么这也算证据？这些是关于“单一因果关系”的问题（与因果概括相反）。目前的答案分散在不同的地方，它们往往没有理论基础，而且往往相互矛盾。我们的分析表明，这是因为我们试图寻找证据的关系还没有得到很好的理解。因此，为了回答我们的主要问题，我们的目标是发展一个丰富的单一因果关系理论：当一个原因成功（或不成功）产生一个结果时，什么是典型的真实？奇异因果关系是哲学关注的中心问题，具有重要的现实意义。了解它是如何工作的，对于在实践中判断干预是否会导致预期的结果至关重要。我们的项目旨在提高对奇异因果关系的理论和实践理解。从我们的目标是产生一个框架编目证据的单一因果索赔，可以帮助政策规划者和评估者（如学校校长，发展项目的评估者，那些负责实施新的儿童保护计划）在预测他们的地方设置，如果干预措施可以实施和成功，或评估后，如果它已经这样做。我们将作为一个案例研究，以测试我们的想法成功和失败，在实施儿童保护方案的安全标志，其理论的变化包括更广泛的系统性变化，需要支持与家庭的直接工作的变化。芒罗一直在对英国和爱尔兰的实施情况进行行动研究。还有一个关于其实施和各种成功的研究机构，我们可以使用。一个常见的问题是，重点放在与家庭直接工作的层面上，而不考虑影响一线工作人员的组织因素，这些因素与工作相冲突（例如，记录要求与安全标志的分析结构不匹配;组织信息给予儿童直接工作的优先级低于安全标志的规定）。我们的研究将为高级管理人员提供指导，以了解可能需要改变的更全面的因素。在其他实践框架中也会出现类似的实施问题，因此本研究将为如何探索更广泛的系统的影响提供一个通用模型。这些更广泛的系统在哲学中被称为“机制”，在方法论中被称为“背景”，其中背景被视为一个复杂的系统，在不同的分析层次上研究的不同类型的原因交织在一起。一些新的研究方法已经开发出来（例如从“现实主义评估”的上下文机制结果模型;新的工作“复杂的社会系统”）。但是，对发挥作用的不同类型机制的分析不足，这些类型需要在不同学科中研究不同的调查方法。我们的目标是通过Cartwright对哲学和循证政策研究中出现的3种因果机制的哲学分析来为这场辩论做出贡献：o一个原因产生其效果的一步一步的过程o每一步产生联系的趋势提供因果过程的基础系统。我们的项目将探索适合研究每种机制所做的不同类型贡献的方法，以便构建理论上有充分依据的模板“证据-角色地图”，用于因果预测和评估。这些地图绘制了与证明单一因果关系索赔相关的各种信息，并指出了每种信息所起的作用。了解不同信息所起的不同作用，对于评估收集哪些信息、缺失信息的风险以及所有证据的重要性至关重要。