Government Social Research
Last Updated: 16/9/2008
Once the REA team has been chosen you need to formulate the REA question. The question will lead the direction of the REA and therefore will have a significant effect on the conclusions. In any question there may be many ideological and theoretical assumptions that need to be made explicit. These constitute the conceptual framework and will inform many of the operational decisions undertaken in the REA including defining which studies are considered and how they are interpreted, appraised, and used.
A ‘question led’ approach to REAs means that the REA question:
An REA is capable of answering many different types of question; for the purposes of this Toolkit these have been split into ‘impact’ and ‘non-impact’ questions. This distinction is not ideal but reflects the fact that the most common REA question (and hence the one that methods are most developed for) is currently the impact or “what works?” question.
An REA can address more than one type of question, particularly in combining impact questions (what works) with implementation (what is required to make it work) and economic questions (what are the costs and benefits).