Category Archives: Research

Careers in Science-Related Policy, Part 1: Balancing Research with Policy Interests in Graduate School

Mary Fernandes, Melanie Arenson, Elyse Mowle

The number of PhD graduates that pursue traditional tenure-track faculty career paths is declining yearly (Horn, 1999). Many graduate students choose to pursue “alternative” careers in business, industry, policy, education, practice, and more. Unfortunately, while most PhD training programs adequately train students for research-based careers, few are able to support the needs of students with alternative goals. As a result, graduate students are left to supplement their training with experiences aligned with their career goals. But how? Well, if you’re interested in pursuing a career that integrates science and policy, you’re in luck! Below, we have listed some helpful educational and training resources to help you build your policy-related skill-set, as well as some tips to help you balance your research responsibilities with such opportunities. 

Resources/tips for students interested in policy 

  1. Look for policy trainings locally and/or at the conferences that you attend (e.g., SPSSI’s 2019 Policy Workshop). 
  2. Get involved in policy-making or policy-influencing bodies at your university (e.g., Graduate Association of Student Psychologists, University Executive Committees, etc.). 
  3. Get involved in your local Psychological Association and/or other mental health organizations that include a strong advocacy or policy component. Ask to get involved in these roles. 
  4. Seek advice from psychologists in your area of study who currently hold policy positions of interest to you. Ask them what their path to their position was and try to emulate it. 
  5. Align your research and practice work with your career goals as much as possible. In your research, think about the policy implications of your work (see this blog post for more information). Stay updated on policies relevant to your clients. 
  6. Apply for training grants that might allow you to pursue a more full-time educational experience while in graduate school (e.g., the Predoctoral Fellowship in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services). 

Tips for balancing policy interests with research and clinical work

  1. For most students, the ability to pursue opportunities outside of graduate school will likely require the approval of a mentor or department head. Be prepared to justify the experiences that you wish to pursue and how they align with your career goals. Consider ways to gain buy-in from your mentor. 
  2. Prioritize your interests. If you have a clear picture of your ideal career endpoint, that might help you prioritize. If you do not have a clear endpoint, do not panic! Consider prioritizing experiences that might help you explore potential careers of interest. 
  3. Practice saying no in an assertive and kind manner. In order to make room for the experiences that you wish to gain, you will need to say no to ones that are less aligned with your goals.
  4. Budget your time. As a graduate student, you’re probably already well-versed in this skill. However, adding additional responsibilities might require more skills. Consider blocking out chunks of time or days for different responsibilities (i.e. research: Friday-Monday, practicum: Tuesday, clinical work: Wednesday, policy work: Friday). Make a plan, and stick to it. Try to arrange your policy-related educational experiences around times when you can truly gain the most out of them. This might be during the summer, during a semester when your course load is lower, or during a “gap” year. 
  5. Consider ways in which your policy interests can be integrated with your research interests. This might serve the dual role of 1) having your research inform your policy, and vice versa, and 2) gaining buy-in from your advisor in the form of publications, conference presentations, etc.
  6. Self-care! Adding more to your plate means expanding your mental, physical, and emotional resources. Family time, sufficient sleep, healthy eating, and exercise are important. The more you stretch your limits, the more important these will become. 

Benefits of pursuing policy-related experiences in graduate school

  1. Skills you learn (writing and presenting information for a variety of audiences, speaking to stakeholders and policymakers) are applicable across many fields, whether you go into research, a clinical career, industry, or policy full time.
  2. Sharing your passion about a particular area of interest (eg. specific population, pathology, social-justice issue, etc.) could help you stand out during internship and postdoc interviews.
  3. Networking! Getting involved at the university, local, state, and national levels means meeting and developing professional relationships with more psychologists in your field and area of interest.
  4. Exploring and narrowing down career interests. You might find novel ways to use your skills and pursue an interest that you hadn’t thought about before delving into a policy opportunity. 
  5. Gain a different perspective. Engaging in policy work might allow you to form a more macro-level perspective than is typically afforded when primarily working with individuals in clinical or research settings. A more systems-based perspective, might, in turn, inform your research and clinical practice. 

Where Science Meets Policy Part 4: Writing a Policy Brief

Mary Fernandes, Elyse Mowle, & Melanie Arenson

Why do we need it?

As mentioned in a previous blog post, there is a well-known lack of consistent translation of scientific research into public policy. Researchers and policy-makers often have differing timescales and incentives that contribute to limited communication between the two groups. For example, policy-makers are often required to work under strict deadlines to produce immediate policy results, and their time-constraints frequently preclude them from staying up-to-date on the vast scientific literature pertaining to the issues they are interested in. As a result, research findings that are easily digestible are more likely to be read, utilized, and acted upon. Researchers have the ability to coherently summarize their work into a short document that provides clear recommendations for policy and practice. In fact, 79% of policy-makers identified policy briefs as valuable communication tools (Jones & Walsh, 2008).

So, what is a policy brief?

A policy brief is a short document that summarizes important research findings about a specific problem to a lay audience and makes recommendations for improving the identified problem. The document is typically focused on a single topic, and is no more than 2-4 pages or 1,500 words long. A policy brief is written with an audience in mind, and should be easy to understand without specialized knowledge or additional reading. Succinct, simple, and smart. The main goal of any policy brief is to convince the audience of the urgency of the problem, as well as to provide feasible, evidence-based solutions to it, and calling the policy-maker(s) to action.

Who is it for?

Policy briefs are used by local, national, and regional policy stakeholders. Other individuals or groups who have access to the policy making process (including nonprofits, government advisers, lobbyists, Think Tanks, and the media) also use policy briefs.

How do I write one?

First, identify the aim of your policy brief. What are you trying to achieve, or communicate to your reader? Next, consider your audience. What is their technical knowledge? How familiar are they likely to be with the issue? What information will they need? With your audience and aim in mind, target the key aspects that a policy-maker will want from your policy brief:

Title- It should be informative and short.
Summary- This is like an abstract, but without the jargon. It summarizes the overview of the problem and makes evidence-based recommendations. This section should appear on the top of the first page of your brief and it should draw the reader in.
Introduction- Provide an overview of the context of the problem. Identify a few salient points that provide support for the urgency of the topic. Also, give an overview of the research objectives, findings, and conclusions. Include why this problem is important to the audience, and if applicable, why previous efforts to solve the problem have failed.
Methods/Approach and Results- Here, explain the methodology used in the presented research as well as the results of the project(s). Distill the results into a few, key take-home messages. Be sure to simplify the language and avoid technical terms.
Conclusions- Provide clear conclusions based on the data, and express them in an assertive manner, without scientific jargon. Solidify the key take-away from the study.
Policy Recommendations- Propose solutions that are relevant to the stated policy problem. The brief should systematically and clearly describe the evidence in support of the proposed solutions. Recommendations should be specific and backed by the evidence you outlined. Ensure that your recommendations are appropriate for the audience. All solutions should be realistic and feasible (cost-effective, reasonable, etc.). State the next steps precisely.
References- Include a list of the references used and provide resources they might be helpful. A large list of references, akin to a research paper, is unnecessary and even unhelpful – this should be a small section of your brief!
Disclaimers- Just like in a presentation, detail any funding sources that contributed to the research presented. Also list contact details and institution disclaimers that might be necessary.
Visual aids/Infographics- Infographics and visual aids often make detail-heavy content more digestible and appealing.

When you’re done, ask yourself if the document answers these questions:

  • What is the purpose of the brief?
  • What problem does it hope to address?
  • What recommendations does it make to address the problem?
  • Does it pass the breakfast test? A good policy brief should be able to answer all of these questions and be read in the time that it takes to drink a coffee over breakfast.

Style Tips

  • Draw the reader in by starting with your conclusions. Clearly state what the problem is from the start.
  • Break up the text – use headings, bulleted lists, font or call-out boxes to highlight key points. Have healthy margins and plenty of white space.
  • Write using active rather than passive voice
  • Write for clarity and simplicity. Can you say in one sentence what you just said in two or three? Think “economy of words”. For example:
    • Did you use a bigger word when a smaller one would have worked? (“Operationalize” versus “define”)
    • Can you cut words or phrases without changing the meaning? (“Due to the fact that” versus “because”)

How to disseminate your policy brief?

  • Share with key players in the policy field. Have copies ready for policy-makers whom you meet with.
  • Share with other stakeholders who might influence the policy-making process (see our ‘Science Meets Policy: Part 1’ post for information about stakeholders). If emailing, mention in the body of the email why the brief will be useful to them. Make sure that the subject of your email is concise, says everything that you want to convey, and eye-drawing (ex. “Importance of Science Influencing Policy: A Policy Brief).
  • Strategically plan the timing of your dissemination (i.e. during preparations for policy shifts, while there is media attention, etc.).
  • Submit the brief to journals that specify a call for briefs (https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/ipp/call-for-policy-briefs).
  • Combine with other communication methods such as posters and presentations at conferences.
  • Use social media to disseminate your brief (e.g. newsletters, Facebook, Twitter).

Further Resources

  1. https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/594.pdf
  2. https://www.researchtoaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/PBWeekLauraFCfinal.pdf
  3. https://www.mhinnovation.net/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/Tool6_PolicyBrief_14Oct2015.pdf
  4. https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&pageId=1698
  5. http://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/griphealth/files/2017/01/Policy-briefs-guide_2015.pdf

Sample Briefs

  1. https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/ccch/Policy_Brief_24_web.pdf
  2. https://www.emerald-project.eu/fileadmin/websites/emerald/media/Policy_briefs/11._Service_user_and_care_giver_involvement_in_mental_health_system_strengthening_in_Nepal.pdf

References
Jones, Nicola & Walsh, Cora. (2008). Policy Briefs as a Communication Tool for Development Research. ODI Background Notes.

Positioning Your Research as a Graduate Student to Address Social Injustices

By Kevin Wagner and Gabriel Velez

Social injustices involve power relations and unequal access to privileges based on domination and subordination (Miller, 1999; Prilleltensky & Gonick, 1996). Examples abound across the globe, and given their prevalence and impact on human suffering, conducting research to address social injustices are particularly important. As a graduate student, it can feel like there are so many problems in the world and there’s nothing we can do about it. A first step in this journey is recognizing the problems we are most passionate about, identifying our role and resources to address the problem, and then acting in our roles as emerging psychologists. This article is how to do that as grad researchers in psychology by offering an overview of the dissemination and implementation (D&I) literature as a guide to position research to address social injustices. It emerges from our own reflecting, asking ourselves, how can we position our research as graduate students to address social injustices? Below we draw from the D&I literature to outline four guidelines to position research as a graduate student to address social injustices.

Tenet One: Planning Your Research

Bartholomew & Mullen (2011) assert that effective research is guided by theory and empirical evidence. Planning your research to address social injustices means selecting appropriate theories and understanding what empirical evidence provides a strong foundation; design research based on theory to provide sound structure to your investigation. One common framework from the D&I literature to develop change programs is intervention mapping, which includes six core steps: 1) describing the problem (e.g., a phenomenon related to social injustices), 2) developing metrics to measure change (how will you measure the impact of your research, program, or intervention on addressing social injustices?), 3) implementing theory-based intervention to promote change, 4) organizing materials to produce the program cogently, 5) implementing the program with fidelity and with support from others, and 6) creating an evaluation plan to assess the effectiveness of the program (Bartholomew & Mullen, 2011).

Tenet Two: Conducting Your Research

Whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods, a critical component of research with a social-justice focus is attentiveness to positionality, diversity, and validity. The many facets require more space than we have here, but we believe it is important to highlight that the research process itself must reflect and be forthright about the social justice orientation of the researcher (Morrow, 2005; Ponterotto, Mathew, & Raughley, 2013). Specifically, best practices to consider for reflection include, 1) cultural competence of the researchers, 2) research focus, 3) selection of research design, 4) composition of research team, 5) power dynamics with participants, and 6) data collection and analysis (Fassinger & Morrow, 2013).

Tenet Three: Disseminating Your Research

Disseminating your research is necessary to share your message and involves spreading information to targeted audiences using determined strategies (Tabak, Khoong, Chambers, Brownson, 2012). In the context of social injustice, it is vital to have your research accessible to relevant stakeholders that can utilize it, such as policy makers, clinicians, advocates, educators, and community members. Of course, sharing your research to non-academic audiences means you will need to communicate academic findings as if you were not an academic. This is difficult, especially when we don’t usually get trained to write that way, so this may involve some self-learning through reading instructional blog posts, finding exemplar writers in your area, and examining APA policy statements. You should also anticipate and plan to address potential barriers, such as costs, time, relationships, and partnerships needed to disseminate your research.

Tenet Four: Implementing Your Research

Once you have conducted your research and generated knowledge, implementation entails applying it to make a difference (Tabak et al., 2012). There are always barriers to doing this. Considerations include: how can the research inform actual policy and practice; what are barriers within applied connects; is the local political and social climate going to be supportive; will a community be receptive to or want to participate in a community-based intervention (Klein & Sorra, 1996)? Observing the organization, conducting surveys, and making connections with desired organizations – that is, studying and caring about the local context – can help you successfully implement the research.

Conclusion:

Social injustices are rife but can be studied and addressed through a psychological lens. As graduate students we were simultaneously in a position of vulnerability (e.g., advisors, programs, student debt) and privilege (e.g., highly educated; access to university/professional resources). Therefore, in many ways graduate student researchers are in a unique position to be keenly aware of injustices and have the resources to make a real difference. Some of these resources can be found in relevant professional and community organizations, such as APAGS subcommittees (e.g., Science, Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, Advocacy Coordinating Team). Having an overall guiding framework can help provide structure and clarity in how to draw on these supports. Therefore, we have offered a brief overview of the D&I literature as a first step for other graduate students interested in delving further into questions of social justice and integrating them into their own work and development. With this goal in mind, we end with a list of some resources for further exploration.

Further Resources for Exploration:

  1. Journals/Volumes
  2. Articles for General Reflection
  3. Organizations

References:

Bartholomew, L. K., & Mullen, P. D. (2011). Five Roles for Using Theory and Evidence in the Design and Testing of Behavior Change Interventions. Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 71, S20-S33.

Fassinger, R., & Morrow, S. L. (2013). Toward Best Practices in Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed-Method Research: A Social Justice Perspective. Journal for Social Action in Counseling & Psychology, 5(2), 69-83.

Klein, K. J., & Sorra, J. S. (1996). The Challenge of Innovation Implementation. The Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 1055-1080.

Miller, D. (1999). Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Morrow, S. L. (2005). Quality and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research in Counseling Psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(2), 250-260.

Ponterotto, J. G., Mathew, J. T., & Raughley, B. (2013). The Value of Mixed Methods Designs to Social Justice Research in Counseling and Psychology. Journal for Social Action in Counseling & Psychology, 5(2), 42-68.

Prilleltensky, I., & Gonick, L. (1996). Polities Change, Oppression Remains: On the Psychology and Politics of Oppression. Political Psychology, 17(1), 127-148.

Tabak, R. G., Khoong, E. C., Chambers, D. A., & Brownson, R. C. (2012). Bridging Research and Practice: Models for Dissemination and Implementation Research. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 43(3), 337-350.

About the Authors:

Kevin Wagner is a second year Ph.D. student in counseling psychology at the University of Texas at Austin (Email).

Gabriel Velez is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago (Email).

Where Science Meets Policy Part 3: Writing About Your Science for Non-scientific Audiences

Melanie Arenson & Mary Fernandes

It is critical that researchers translate their scientific findings to non-scientist consumers (seriously, we’ve written 2 blog posts about it – find out about engaging with stakeholders here and how to write academic papers for a broader range of stakeholders here). However, many researchers (including us graduate students!) feel uncertain about exactly how or where to write about our science. While graduate students typically get exposure to creating posters, giving talks, and writing scientific articles, very few of us are ever taught how to write for other mediums. Below are a few tips and tricks.

Writing for a non-scientific audience.

  • Adjust your lexicon. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Many of us have been talking about our work in scientific circles for so long that jargon is second-nature for us. Break the habit.  Write about your findings in your typical scientific manner and then go back and ask yourself, “but what does this mean?” — then replace whatever you wrote with that answer. Wherever possible, write in lay terms or connect back to phenomena that people know and understand.
  • Write a story. This sounds abstract, but it is really important. People are good at processing stories — they’re not as good at conceptualizing facts and figures and understanding why they matter. The story will change depending upon the science that you are talking about, but it should flow from beginning to middle to end.
  • Write short. Ideally, people should be able to get the gist your scientific findings and the story you are going to tell them within the first 3 sentences. Get to the point as quickly as possible. For longer pieces (e.g. a blogpost), you can definitely expand, but the first few sentences should be a punch that conveys the big takeaways.
  • Wherever possible, include accessible infographics. What these look like can change from discipline to discipline, but you want the graphic to be accessible, easy to understand without explanation, and to summarize the most important take-home point and/or summarize large amounts of information.

Now, share it!

  • Social Media: If you’ve written something just a few sentences long, tweet it, share it on Facebook, or find a great photograph to represent it on Instagram. Then, interact with anyone who comments on or likes it. Encourage people to share your work, and make sure you’ve provided links back to the original scientific article.
  • Link to longer pieces: If what you’ve written is longer than just a few sentences (e.g. you wrote a blogpost, or have talked about your research in a news article), provide the link to the longer story, but make sure you’ve got a 1-3 sentence summary of your results and why they matter. As a tip, if you’ve followed the tricks listed above, you’ve probably already written those 1-3 sentences.
  • Blog posts: There are a number of science-relevant blogs (in fact, you’re reading one of them!). These blogs can vary from area to area, but they are a fantastic way to disseminate your research.
  • Email and listservs: We know this can feel strange, but you should be sharing your work with your colleagues. This means blasting it out on listservs and sending it to your department. First, people in your field are probably already interested in your work. Second, they also have connections, and may want to forward your work to other people who might also be interested. Whenever possible, include links to both the scientific article and the more accessible format.

Help! The media has asked about my work.
First of all, congratulations! You’ve been contacted by the media, because they want to know more about the really cool science that you are doing.
Many scientists feel nervous about talking to the media. They worry their work will get misrepresented, or feel uncomfortable describing themselves as the expert. Below are a few tricks (some of them may feel familiar).

  • Adjust your lexicon. Before providing information to the news source, do some background research on them to see what their writing style is usually like, and who you think their target audience is. Then, adjust your language accordingly.
  • Tell a story. It’ll be a short story, but it should still be a story. Whenever possible, connect back to why your results matter. Contextualize it within the broader picture.
  • Talk short. Your answers shouldn’t be lengthy. Make sure you already know how you want to talk about your work and what the key takeaways are (think back to those 1-3 sentences you’ve been using for social media and the beginning of blog posts).
  • Plan your responses. Think about what questions you might be asked and plan out how you would respond. Pay special attention to anything you think might be taken out of context; aim not only to be understood, but also to avoid being misunderstood. Be as precise in your language as you can be, without sliding into scientific jargon.
  • Build a relationship. Whenever possible, build rapport with the media author that contacted you. You want to be in a place where you would feel comfortable contacting them if you think they’ve accidentally misrepresented your work.
  • Remember, you are the expert. This one can be really difficult, but you are the expert in your work. Take pride in that, feel confident in that.

Further resources.
Don’t just take our word for it! Tons of people have written about communicating scientific findings to non-scientists. Below are a few of our favorites:

Keep following the series for more ways to translate your science! Up next, we’ll discuss how to write a policy brief.

Where Science Meets Policy Part 2: How to Write Academic Papers for a Broad Range of Stakeholders

Mary Fernandes, Renee Cloutier, Travis Loughran, Melanie Arenson

If you’re here after our last post on “Involving Stakeholders in Every Step of Your Research”, welcome back! In our last post, we discussed what a stakeholder is, why we should involve
them in our research work, and how we can efficiently do so. However, we shouldn’t stop there! One next step to increasing the impact that your research has on policy is to effectively convey your completed work to these invested stakeholders. This can be hard to do, so below are a few tips that might make this easier.

First, write with stakeholders in mind.
In order to write a paper that will affect public policy, first ask yourself the questions, “who will read this?”, and, “who will be affected by this?” (Purdue University, OWL). Frame your scientific paper with this audience in mind, whether it be policy makers, insurance companies, businesses, local citizens, patients, or providers. Remembering your unique audience will allow you to communicate your work at the level of your reader. With the policy implications of your work in mind, you might also carefully consider the right journal to submit to. For example, you could choose to submit your work to a journal that is less niche than you might normally submit to and more general or policy focused.

Always lead with the “why”, not the “what”.
Then, ask yourself why your work should matter to your stakeholders. Discuss these reasons succinctly and clearly to grab your stakeholders’ attention before describing what it is you did. By failing to address the “why”, you might lose your stakeholders from the very beginning. But how do you ensure that your reasons for your study line up with those of your stakeholders? How do you identify what your “why” is?

Figuring that out will require you to really understand your stakeholders’ concerns. Hopefully, you were able to use the above strategies to include stakeholders while planning your research, but if you did not, it’s not too late to do so. Speak to them with a goal of truly understanding their principal concerns. Ask them questions about what they would like to see solutions to. Discuss your project with them and inquire about their feedback and unique insights into the usefulness of your work. Once you have a clear idea of what policy problems your project can tackle, lead with it. Keep in mind that a policy problem is not always the same as a scientific problem.

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