Team up and participate in Pact's learning networks research!
USAID-PVC has awarded Pact research grant
noticia 176 de 187 
Pact, Inc.
2005-07-28 4:00
Do you consider yourself an academic/researcher or a practitioner? Pact has been awarded a research grant from the United States Agency for International Development, Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation. This research will advance the development sector’s understanding of what matters most to high-performing learning networks (also frequently called knowledge networks or Communities of Practice) and will highlight key lessons learned and recommendations for organizational change leaders launching or managing learning networks. Read on below about our learning Networks research methodology and join a team. We promise you it will be more fun than reality TV. "Include me/my organization in the PRACTIONER TEAM (Representatives of NGOs, CSOs, local municipalities, along with other individuals who actively participate in learning networks) Include me/my organization in the ACADEMIC/RESEARCHER TEAM (Researchers and thought leaders whose professional preoccupation is studying, writing about or managing networks for learning)."
Sharing knowledge is central to successful learning networks. It is equally central to our research design. As a primary approach to identifying the factors that improve the performance of learning networks, Pact will document practitioner experiences with learning networks through surveys, focus group discussions, moderated online forums, phone conferencing, case studies, and a rapid tool development and testing process.
Research activities will be carried out by two coalitions working in tandem. One coalition will include researchers and thought leaders whose professional preoccupation is studying, writing about or managing networks for learning. This coalition will include academics, authors, and private sector representatives. The second coalition will include representatives of NGOs, CSOs, local municipalities, along with other individuals who actively participate in learning networks. These two coalitions will work to identify gaps that exist between the theory and practice of learning networks.
In this study Pact will integrate the knowledge and experiences of these two coalitions by convening three global dialogues that will include hundreds of practitioners and researchers. The objectives of the global dialogues include:
1. Generate more accurate, rich, and useful data by triggering reactions to various learning networks issues between practitioners and researchers, and within the development community as a whole.
2. Create an actual learning network with a committed and diverse community of research participants modeling promising practices and experimenting with new innovations identified through the action research itself.
3. Establish a lasting foundation and process for discussion around learning networks – one that supports the ongoing and rapid transmission of ideas among like-minded individuals.
The research methodology includes the following features
· Collection of comprehensive data from our two coalitions or populations of interest: academics, researchers and thought leaders currently working in universities, the private sector, non profit agencies and bilateral and multilateral funding agencies (Group A); and experienced participants in learning networks that operate worldwide in formal and informal ways across a range of institutions and sectors (Group B).
· Identification, by approximately 100 experts from Group A, of a single learning network that they each know best regardless of its performance. Each expert will be asked to rank the performance of the chosen network on a seven point scale from exemplary to extremely poor. Participants will also be asked to describe their chosen network in terms of approximately 30 characteristics. (See “Specific Research Questions” for the framework for these characteristics).
· Conduct an analysis of the initial data generated from Group A. This analysis will not focus on how high performing networks are alike but rather on how they are different from poor performers. The answer will involve three rounds of statistical winnowing.
o In the first round of winnowing, some characteristics will be eliminated and others that show a significant one-on-one association with performance will remain in the pool. (Pact will use simple Pearson’s Correlations to demonstrate the degree of association between two variables). Surviving characteristics will have at least a 95 percent confidence that the association is other than random.
o In the second round of winnowing, characteristics will be grouped by category (e.g. leadership, measurement, and strategy). Characteristics will remain in the pool through round two only by showing a strong predictive relationship with performance when paired against other surviving characteristics in its category. Within the category of leadership, for example, fostering communications may emerge as a statistically significant predictor of performance. Other less significant predictors will be removed from the pool. Statistically, this will be done through separate ordinary least squares regressions for each category and encompassing all of the surviving characteristics from round one.
o The third and final round of winnowing will involve pitting the surviving characteristics against one another to see which ones show the strongest predictive relationship with performance. (Single ordinary least squares regression of the surviving characteristics from the second round).
· Each round of statistical winnowing will be followed by a global dialogue with participants from Groups A and B. Each of the three dialogues will run for four to six weeks and will include a combination of the following: focus group workshops facilitated by Pact field offices and Impact Alliance partners and members in Cambodia, China Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mongolia, Peru, South Africa, and Zambia; moderated online discussion; and phone conferencing with a representative sample of participants from Groups A and B.
For research design please look at the figure at the bottom
· At the end of the first global dialogue, Group B participants will vote to advance the most promising characteristics to the next round. Differences from the statistical winnowing produced by Group A will be the subject of discussion and debate. Following the second global dialogue, both groups will select the characteristics they feel should advance. Analysis and comparison of these selections will then be the focus of the third and final dialogue.
· Over the course of the investigation, Pact will award three small competitive grants to participating institutions and thought leaders for “rapid prototyping” of tools and approaches to support learning networks. These small grants will encourage participants to act quickly to develop and test first generation services and tools that emerge in real time from the study. (For example, participants in the initiative may identify a promising tool for measuring learning network capacity or an approach to creating/disseminating knowledge that could be tested through this project.) A rapid case study appraisal of each award will be completed and will document what works best. Lessons learned will then be incorporated to improve the service or tool for second generation users.
Figure 1. Research Design for Learning Networks
Include me/my organization in the PRACTIONER TEAM (Representatives of NGOs, CSOs, local municipalities, along with other individuals who actively participate in learning networks)
Include me/my organization in the ACADEMIC/RESEARCHER TEAM (Researchers and thought leaders whose professional preoccupation is studying, writing about or managing networks for learning).
| Autor(es) | Pact, Inc. |
| Fecha de vencimiento | 2005-07-28 8:00 |
| Palabras clave | learning network research grant |
| Palabras clave de Geografía | Global |