Greetings, AEA365 readers! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. Registration for this year’s conference is officially open, and our local hosts at the Indiana Evaluation Association (IEA) are working with the AEA team to ensure our time in lovely Indianapolis is a fulfilling one. This week’s posts feature the voices of IEA’s members. Happy reading!
Hello, I’m Jacqueline Singh, MPP, PhD (she/her), an evaluator and program design advisor based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Throughout my career, I’ve held roles as an internal and external evaluator, and higher education researcher. I’ve taken on program design responsibilities within non-profit organizations, government agencies, and higher education institutions. Regardless of the setting, I’ve held a strong interest in policy and focused on the context and design of programs that align with specific policies to facilitate the fidelity of their implementation.
Recently, I have developed a growing interest in exploring narratives that surround different public policies and delving deeper into understanding (and applying) the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to my work. The NPF provides valuable insights and applications that enhance and complement diverse evaluation approaches, resulting in a more comprehensive understanding of policy outcomes. What particularly appeals to me about the NPF is its recognition of three levels of analysis: the micro-level, which examines the narratives of individuals; the meso-level, which captures group and coalition narratives; and the macro-level, which broadly focuses on the narratives of cultures and institutions that shape the boundaries of micro- and meso-level narratives.
In the following sections, I highlight some key aspects of the NPF and provide resources to explore and consider for its application in the evaluation process.
Lessons Learned:
The NPF is both a theoretical framework and methodology that offers a systematic approach to analyzing and comprehending the development and communication of narratives within policy-making processes. Its primary focus lies in examining how these narratives, often referred to as policy frames, shape policy debates that subsequently influence the implementation of policies and programs. The following are some key aspects of the NPF:
- The NPF, introduced in 2010 in the United States, quickly integrated into European contexts. It represents a systematic approach to studying the role of narratives in policy-making, initially focusing on environmental policy at the group or coalition level.
- The NPF helps with understanding how stakeholder perspectives and narratives are created, communicated, and received within policy-making processes. Such knowledge enables evaluators to assess the influence of different stakeholders and their narratives on policy/program outcomes.
- Narrative elements (e.g., characters, plot, setting, and moral evaluations) impact the effectiveness of a policy narrative, which may have long-term effects that shape decision-making—and, impact policy and program implementation and evaluation.
- Potential challenges or barriers to policy/program implementation can be identified by analyzing narratives, which is helpful for understanding and addressing implementation gaps.
- The NPF encourages critical examination of one’s own narratives and biases. Self-awareness enhances reflexivity and heightens awareness of potential ethical considerations that contributes to the overall rigor and credibility of a policy and/or program under investigation.
- The NPF is increasingly being applied in various contexts, levels of analysis, and methodologies, but users should consider its assumptions and relevance in new contexts.
- Cultural differences may affect the applicability of narrative elements in the NPF. It is unclear how well narrative elements hold in different cultural contexts. Consequently, qualitative and interpretive analysis will play a crucial role in advancing our understanding.
- Exploration of the impact of narratives at different stages of the policy cycle is needed.
Rad Resources:
- A Brief Introduction To The Narrative Policy Framework
- A Narrative Policy Framework Clear Enough To Be Wrong
- How To Conduct A Narrative Policy Framework Study
- Narratives And The Policy Process: Applications Of The Narrative Policy Framework
- Policy Narrative, Policy Understanding And Policy Support Intention: A Survey Experiment on Energy Conservation
- The Narrative Policy Framework: A Traveler’s Guide to Policy Studies
- Using Narrative Methods to Link Program Evaluation and Organization Development
We’re looking forward to the Evaluation 2023 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to AEA365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to AEA365@eval.org. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.