Browsing by Author "Merrick, Weston"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Do you want a state government official to support your policy idea? Bring good research (and expect better outcomes)
    (The Fulcrum, 2024-01-09) Carter, Patrick; Cheng, Yuan (Daniel); Merrick, Weston; Xu, Chengxin
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    Evidence-based Practices and U.S. State Government Civil Servants : Current Use, Challenges and Pathways Forward
    (Public Administratoin Review, 2024) Cheng, Yuan (Daniel); Thompson, Leslie; Wang, Shuping; Marzec, Jules; Xu, Chengxin; Merrick, Weston; Carter, Patrick
    Leveraging a three-state survey of 323 civil servants and 36 interviews, representing blue and red states, this university-government-nonprofit collaborative research project aims to better understand how civil servants access and use evidence in their decision-making process. Our findings show that 54% of respondents find evidence-based practices (EBPs) useful in making budget, policy, and contracting decisions, with 68% of civil servants anticipating future benefits from evidence use. Our hypothetical funding choice experiment indicates that civil servants prefer programs that are more recent and in their state, identify outcomes over outputs, demonstrate effectiveness for diverse demographic groups, and are evaluated by independent research entities. The main challenges in using EBPs include time constraints, resource limitations, decision-making fragmentation, and lack of evidence for certain communities. Qualitative interviews provide valuable strategies for overcoming these challenges. We conclude this article by offering practical insights for improving the integration of EBPs in state government decision-making processes.
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    Understanding the Use of Evidence-based Practices by State Leaders and Staff: Current State, Challenges and Outlook
    (2023) Cheng, Yuan (Daniel); Wang, Shuping; Xu, Chengxin; Merrick, Weston; Carter, Patrick; Thompson, Leslie
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    Using behavioral and design science to reduce administrative burdens: Evidence from Minneapolis Public Housing
    (2020-12) Merrick, Weston
    While the behavioral and design sciences share an academic lineage, they have drifted toward different disciplines, picking up the methods of their adopted fields. This drift is unfortunate because design offers powerful tools to uncover the knowledge of system participants and make changes that fit an organization, while behavioral science offers a deep literature of techniques to understand human behavior, alter choice architecture, and measure the impact of that change. I explore the potential to integrate the two in a mixed-method study with Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. Through the partnership, I show how a design-based approach can help identify extant choice architecture and residents’ cognitive shortcuts that may be causing undesirable outcomes, mobilize participant knowledge to promote reflection that advances changing of existing structures, and experimentally test the resulting interventions’ ability to reduce eviction actions. I make the case that integrating these approaches in the context of new understanding about administrative burdens opens fertile theoretical and methodological ground for a behavioral design approach.