A critically important step in policy development is to seek the views, expertise and experience of the community. BETA shares here some of the principles and lessons used by our team when undertaking social and behavioural research projects. While not all consultation needs to meet research standards, there are useful lessons from a research approach that can be applied to all types of community engagements.
These insights complement the tools and guidance materials provided in the Australian Public Service (APS) Framework for Engagement and Participation. It’s a resource for all public servants that’s been endorsed by the Secretaries Board as the APS’s official engagement approach.
The framework outlines 4 increasingly interactive ways to engage the public:
- Share when you need to tell the public about a government initiative
- Consult when you need to gather feedback about a problem or a solution
- Deliberate when you need help because a problem involves competing values, and requires trade-offs and compromise
- Collaborate when you need help to find and implement a solution.
There’s also a handy decision tool and methods for undertaking each type of consultation, including roundtables, reference groups, focus groups, open space technology and surveys.
Lesson 1 - Be purposeful
Researchers never gather data without pinning down a research question first. This means clearly defining the uncertainty we are trying to resolve. What do you need to know? What insights does government need to make good decisions about your policy issue?
Think about the ‘who’ and the ‘what’. Whose views are you interested in? On what topics? Scoping a clear, defined purpose for your consultation will help you pick the right method and ask the right questions.
For example, let’s say you want input on a public housing strategy. You could open a survey asking general questions about how people want to see public housing improve. But perhaps the real gap in your knowledge is how we can help people while they’re on waiting lists. You might be better off actively finding people who are or have been in that situation, and unpacking their experiences in interactive interviews.
Lesson 2 - Be rigorous
Researchers know that it is dreadfully easy to mess up your conclusions due to noise or bias you’ve introduced along the way. Design your consultation approach so the summary you make at the end is a reliable and valid representation of what your target group thinks about your topic or a thorough examination of their experiences. Imagine what you’ll get out of the process you’re designing and critically consider whether a decision maker could confidently act on that.
Think about the following:
- Is the group representative? That is, who is going to respond to my survey or attend my groups, and would their views well represent the views of the broader group I’m interested in? One approach is to recruit participants through a research panel to get perspectives from those who won’t respond to a social media campaign.
- Could the way I’m asking my questions make certain responses more or less likely? Test your questions by sitting down with someone from your target group and having them think aloud as they respond.
- Is the question I am asking the question they are answering? Minor wording changes can have a big impact on how people interpret what you’re looking for. Test questions with your target group to make sure your questions are clear and unambiguous.
- Has my target group thought about this issue before? It’s hard to rely on people’s responses if they’re inventing their views for the first time. When you’re interviewing people, you may be able to introduce the problem or give them a proposal to react to. In a survey, it might be best to stick to asking about people’s experiences or opinions they’re likely to have considered already.
- How can I analyse the responses to produce a fair synthesis? Make sure you have a plan for what you’ll do with the input you receive – whether that’s resourcing the analysis phase appropriately or using software tools. Follow a structured process to avoid confirmation bias, where you unintentionally put more weight on responses that support your existing opinion.
Lesson 3 – Be ethical
At BETA, we send every research proposal to a human research ethics committee to check we are treating participants with respect, that the likely benefits of our research justify any participant discomfort, and that the burdens and benefits are fairly distributed. This ethical review is required for researchers under the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research.
If you’re dealing with a sensitive topic or a marginalised group, you too may find a human research ethics committee has useful advice. Otherwise, apply the principles in the APS Framework for Engagement and Participation: listen (e.g. seek out the right people in the right way), be genuine (e.g. only engage when there is something to discuss) and be open (e.g. about your constraints).
But also be pragmatic
Please don’t let any of this get in the way of you engaging directly with real people! Legitimate time and resource constraints often make it difficult to follow every suggestion. Even informal engagements will help you reframe problems and maintain empathy.
There’s no need for your analysis of stakeholder views to meet the standards of an academic article in a top‑tier journal. But if you have the time, if you’re dealing with a sensitive topic, or if you want your write‑up to be rock solid, it might be worth considering these lessons from social research.