Centre for Health and Society, Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne, Level 4, 207 Bouverie St, Carlton, Victoria, 3010, Australia.
Implement Sci. 2009 Dec 14;4:80. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-4-80.
Traditional methods of process evaluation encompass what components were delivered, but rarely uncover how practitioners position themselves and act relative to an intervention being tested. This could be crucial for expanding our understanding of implementation and its contribution to intervention effectiveness.
We undertook a narrative analysis of in-depth, unstructured field diaries kept by nine community development practitioners for two years. The practitioners were responsible for implementing a multi-component, preventive, community-level intervention for mothers of new babies in eight communities, as part of a cluster randomised community intervention trial. We constructed a narrative typology of approaches to practice, drawing on the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and Max Weber's Ideal Type theory.
Five types of practice emerged, from a highly 'technology-based' type that was faithful to intervention specifications, through to a 'romantic' type that held relationships to be central to daily operations, with intact relationships being the final arbiter of intervention success. The five types also differed in terms of how others involved in the intervention were characterized, the narrative form (e.g., tragedy, satire) and where and how transformative change in communities was best created. This meant that different types traded-off or managed the priorities of the intervention differently, according to the deeply held values of their type.
The data set constructed for this analysis is unique. It revealed that practitioners not only exercise their agency within interventions, they do so systematically, that is, according to a pattern. The typology is the first of its kind and, if verified through replication, may have value for anticipating intervention dynamics and explaining implementation variation in community interventions.
传统的过程评估方法涵盖了已交付的内容，但很少揭示从业者如何相对于正在测试的干预措施来定位自己和行动。这对于扩大我们对实施的理解及其对干预效果的贡献可能至关重要。
我们对九名社区发展从业者在两年内保存的深入、非结构化的实地日记进行了叙述性分析。这些从业者负责在八个社区实施一项多组件、预防、社区层面的干预措施，作为一项群组随机社区干预试验的一部分。我们借鉴了阿尔弗雷德·舒茨（Alfred Schutz）的现象学和马克斯·韦伯（Max Weber）的理想类型理论，构建了一种实践方法的叙事类型学。
从高度“基于技术”的类型（忠实于干预规范）到“浪漫”的类型（将关系视为日常运作的核心），出现了五种实践类型，而完整的关系是干预成功的最终裁决者。这五种类型在如何描述干预措施中涉及的其他人、叙述形式（例如，悲剧、讽刺）以及在何处以及如何在社区中创造变革方面也存在差异。这意味着不同类型根据其类型的根深蒂固的价值观，权衡或管理干预措施的优先级不同。
为本次分析构建的数据集是独特的。它表明从业者不仅在干预措施中行使自己的代理权，而且他们是系统地、即根据模式行事。这种类型学是首创的，如果通过复制得到验证，可能对预测干预动态和解释社区干预措施中的实施变化具有价值。
