The impact assessment is a structured process that measures or evaluates the effectiveness of prearranged or proposed projects and policies by, estimating the extent of change that transpired by a particular intervention. Moreover, impact assessment is allied with project or policy strategic objective because it defines the change that a given organization anticipated to achieve via the execution of a particular policy or development project. Additionally, the structured process of impact evaluation aims to predict, define and estimate the influence of the proposed intervention in attaining the intended goal of a given change.

Furthermore, impact can be defined as the influence or implication resulted from the functioning of prearranged activities. The impact triggered by a development intervention could be intended or unintended — primary or secondary — positive or negative. Intended impact refers to the results or influence of a given intervention. Furthermore, Intended impact usually transpires if or when reinforced via the prearrangement and correct execution of relevant actions. Despite, obtaining desired implication result or manifestation of intended impact, intervention may also produce positive or negative unintended impact. Unintended impact means unplanned negative or positive influence of project activities.

Impact assessment is carried out with the intention to obtain information regarding the phenomenon of change prompted by a given intervention. Each intervention or project intends to achieve specific goal via bringing about positive change or evading negative change.

Moreover, Individual or team who needs or wants to assess the impact of policies and development programs must know the answer to a crucial public policy question; why do organizations evaluate the impact of interventions? And what is the role impact assessment in policy making and management of development projects? Impact assessment is a key fragment of broader policy making and management techniques called Evidence Based Policy Making and Result Based Management. These techniques are globally adopted by governmental and non-governmental organizations, in order to improve the performance of public service delivery. Evidence based policy making and result based management system focuses on the outcome and result rather than input of interventions. However, aforesaid techniques are supported by impact evaluation, whereby results of development interventions and policies obtained via impact evaluation are not only used to set and track the objectives of given policy or development programs but is also used by the policy makers, implementers or program managers, to improve accountability, inform budget allocation and policy decisions.

The impact assessment method aims to monitor and evaluate the activities and objectives of policies and development projects, so as to measures the effectiveness of development program and policies via, estimating the extant of change transpired by a specific intervention or series of interventions. Moreover, impact evaluation is a technique that efficiently support Result based management system. Whereby, policy and development program impact is assessed via, monitoring and other types of evaluation.

In this context monitoring refers to the continuous process that tracks inputs, activities, output and occasionally outcomes of a project, in an attempt to inform policy and development program day to day management, decision making and overall implementation. In other words, monitoring is being used to track; what is happening in a given project via collecting, organizing, interpreting, and documenting the data of ongoing program activities during implementation phase. Through the analysis of aforesaid data implementers can predict and identify the potential risks or problems that might impede the progress of project or derail the project. Early identification of potential problems or risks aid the executing agencies or program managers in taking corrective actions necessary to ensure the execution of projects as per plan.

Each and every project or policy is designed and implemented to accomplish specific purpose. Evaluation can define as, periodic assessment of planned, ongoing or completed project objectives. Evaluation is carried out to determine the change occurred due to the implementation of a given intervention.

The first stage of impact assessment involves prospective analysis, which refers to the process of identifying and characterizing or predicting the most likely implications of proposed actions before execution. Whereas, the second stage includes retrospective analysis, which is the process of measuring the implications produced during and after the execution of proposed project. In other words, the aforementioned aims to recognize how and to what extent a given intervention supports or has supported the intended phenomenon of change.

Author; Khushdil Khan Kasi

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Step One: Define the Problem

Every social research has topic and purpose, it may be regarding unemployment or poverty. Topic can be selected through personal observation or secondary data. However, researcher have to choose a topic which should be confined and focused on a specific social issue, furthermore, researcher should be clear about, what he want to achieve from the research? In simple words researcher should be clear about the purpose of research. Let’s take an example of research topic or problem, researcher might be interested in conducting a research on “high unemployment rate in African American community”. Researcher might conduct research on this topic, with the assumption, “Racial discrimination is the cause of unemployment”. Moreover, when research topic and purpose are clear and carefully selected then researcher can proceed his research.

Step Two: Literature Review

Literature review is the part of research where, researcher review all the social researches similar to his research topic. It provides clear picture of specific social problem and explore the associated theories related to the problem. Moreover, literature review helps the researcher to identify those areas of social problem, on which research has not been conducted in past. It also saves the researcher, from duplicating research. Furthermore, researcher also gets an idea during literature review that, which research method should be applied on the social issue. The theoretical approaches; discovered through literature review related to research topic, helps the researcher in developing questionnaire and interview questions; which are data collection tools as discussed earlier. Review of the literature is considered as the back bone of research, in addition, it helps the researcher in identifying the variables required for developing questionnaire and testing hypothesis. If we continue the above example of “high unemployment rate in African American community”, the variables could be race and unemployment. After collecting data, it will depend upon the research design that, which method would be used in analyzing or testing data.     

Step Three: Generate Hypothesis

Hypothesis are the assumptions behind research, on basis of which research is conducted. Let’s put it in this way, the purpose behind conducting research is to prove or disapprove the research assumption. These assumption are the mysteries which researcher is trying to resolve by, conducting research. Hypothesis should be clear and measureable, hypothesis of the above example could be “Racial discrimination is the cause of unemployment”.

Step Four: Research Methodology

In this step researcher choose the research method may be one or more. Selecting research method depends upon research topic and hypothesis. Sometimes some research methods are not applicable on certain type of research. However, in research methodology research method is not only thing to be decided by researcher. Researcher has to decide sampling technique, data collection instrument and statistical method for testing hypothesis. Suppose if data collection instrument is questionnaire then researcher have to decide which scale should be used to get better output from testing data. Data can be analyze through frequency distribution and graphical representation of tabulation or it can be analyzed through multivariate data analysis techniques.   

Step Five:Data Collection

As discussed earlier, data can be collected from different methods, through questionnaire, interview, observation and secondary data analysis. Literature review is the part, where researcher perform secondary data analysis, analyzing the past researches which are similar to his research. Moreover data collection through questionnaire is asking the same set of question from different individuals, questionnaire may be close ended or open ended again depends on the research. Data should be collected and recorded carefully by researcher because, on the basis of the data, research hypothesis is tested and concluded.

Step Six: Analyze and Interpret the Results

After data collection researcher analyze data with the help of statistical methods. For data analysis researcher might use simple frequency distribution or may use multivariate data analysis. Whatever technique is better for testing the hypothesis and justifying result should be used by the researcher. After the analysis of data, researcher should interpret the results by accepting and rejecting hypothesis. Tabulation and graphs also requires interpretation. For example 60% of unemployed African American lives in bad school district. It explains the relationship between the unemployment and low educational standard in school. Which imply that, low educational standard in schools might results in unemployment.    

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Government agencies census reports, provide enormous information to sociologist for conducting, content analysis research. Demographic information of the country population can be used in content analysis; may be researcher is interested in analyzing the “relationship between child education and household income” , such type of pattern can be analyze from secondary data analysis. Advantage of using content analysis methods is that it is cheap to conduct whereas, the disadvantage is that, sometimes it is difficult to obtain secondary data required for research.           

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Participant Observation

It is amongst, one of the method to collect, record and analyze information regarding specific social issue in fieldwork research. Obtaining information through, participant observation method; requires, participation of researcher in subject daily life. Now here, readers might be having question in their minds; how does researcher obtain data, by participating in subject daily life activities? Answer to the question is simple, researcher observe and record the patterns of subject interactions and social life. Participant observation method; is used by interactionist researcher, for the reason that, it helps them to determine, the fundamental building block of society “social interactions”.  In 2000 a writer named, “Rodney Rothman” pretended to be an employ for two weeks in a New York firm called “dot com”. The purpose behind his stunt, was to analyze work environment of organization; where white collar employees’ work. He worked there for two weeks and recorded all the interactions and behavior of the employees within organization and then wrote an article on his observations, titled “my fake job” published in New York Times. However, the method which he used in his field research; for data collection was, participant observation. 

Ethnography Method

Ethnography method tends to observe that how a group of people; who live together comprehend their social standing, in society. Ethnographer areas of field research are observing, the cultural norms of small community, he could be interested in, observing the culture norms of specific tribe. Every place, which is confined by borders are used for different social purposes and have set their own standards, of expected behavior are the research area of ethnographer. Ethnographers are interested in identifying cultural norms and values which influence human behavior in a particular society, by the mean of observation. Researcher might visit a community, as a guest, to observe and record their ways of life and the roles which are expected of an individual in a community. 

Case study Method

It is used by researcher; for studying a particular social event, scenario or individual. Information regarding the study can be obtained from the following methods, past records, documents, observation, participant observation and interview. As mentioned earlier, case study method studies an individual, researcher might be interested in conducting case study on juvenile delinquent, and unique case may add a lot of knowledge to certain discipline. For example; it may explore the patterns of learning criminal behavior by a juvenile. It may determine the different causes, which lead juvenile towards committing crime. Such as growing up in bad neighborhood may lead him towards criminal behavior or may be compelled by family members or friends to commit crime. However, many researcher criticize case study method, for the reason that, it does not provide generalize result because it focuses on specific event or individual.         

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Techniques which are used for, the selection of respondents in research, called “sampling techniques”. With the help of sampling techniques researcher analyze number of respondents required for research; out of “population”. Respondents, who participate in the research or, respond to the questionnaire; are termed as “sample”. It is important for reader to know survey method is used in many fields to obtain knowledge. This method is not just limited to sociological knowledge, it is also used for other researches. An individual is frequently, bombarded with survey questionnaires. Coming out of restaurant customer receive a feedback survey questionnaire regarding product and services. Researcher can reach respondents through social media, email and telecommunication. Moreover, online polls like political poll, entertainment poll and marketing poll, are also type of survey questionnaire. However, the prime purpose of survey is to obtain data whether it’s regarding social issue or product and services.

Another instrument of data collection in survey method, is interview. One on one conversation of researcher and participant is called interview. There are two types of interviews; structured interview and unstructured interview. In structured interview respondents have been asked to answer, close-ended questions whereas, in unstructured interview respondents have been asked to answer, open-ended questions. Furthermore, if researcher is interested in multivariate data analysis for testing research hypothesis then, he should choose the “sampling technique”, “sample size” and “questionnaire measurement scales”, very carefully because, mentioned components have impact on the, reliability of test results.   

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Lab experiment is initiated by, creating an artificial environment in lab by researcher; which helps him to manipulate variables. After setting the lab, researcher select a few people with similar demographic information as subjects of experiment. Furthermore, People are randomly divided in to two groups; one group is controlled group and another is experimental group. Difference between both groups is that experimental group is exposed to independent variable and controlled group is not being exposed to the independent variable. In the above example “carbonated drink” can be categorized as independent variable and “stomach” as dependent variable. Suppose, if researcher wants to analyze “the impact of tutoring on children academic performance” from experiment method. If Researcher want to conduct experiment in lab, he has to set a lab and create artificial environment in which he is able to manipulate variable. Moreover, participants will be selected for conducting experiment, with similar academic performance, age and grade. Furthermore, participants will be divided into two groups randomly. Both group will have to prepare the same chapters of same subjects, nonetheless, controlled group will be only taught by school teacher, whereas. experimental group will be taught by school teacher and tutor, for the time period of one month. Both groups will be tested after a month, same paper would be drafted for the test. However, test result will conclude the experiment result as well. If the score of experimental group was more than controlled group, the research will be concluded as tutoring have influence on enhancing academic capabilities of a children.  Researcher has to set parameters in choosing the participants because if subject of experiment is not qualified as participant, it will affect the reliability of experiment. For example considering the tutoring experiment, if researcher select participants from different standards, the result of the experiment will be unreliable because same material will be provided to all participants for preparation, in a specific duration. Students studying in high standard might score high without any help whereas, students of lower standard may score low with tutoring. Participants should be of same standard, and academic performance should be similar as well.       

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Sociological research can be conducted from different methods, it depends on researcher which method he selects, to be reliable for his research. Following are the methods of sociological research; survey method, content analysis or secondary data analysis method, experiment method and field work method. However, application of each method has its advantages and disadvantages, therefore researcher has to decide which method would give him or her authentic findings. Furthermore, researcher has to collect data for conducting research, there are different tools for collecting data such as, interview, questioners, focus group discussion, observation and case study. Each data collection method is different from others. Whereas, data are of two types; primary data and secondary data, both data are vital for conducting research.

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