Research & Evaluation
Central to the mission of the GLADI is conducting rigorous research and evaluation to build a theory-predicated evidence base for generous listening and dialogue. To do so, the GLADI takes a developmental-science approach to promoting human flourishing. Contemporary models of human development are framed by a process-relational paradigm that emphasizes development as unfolding through mutually-influential relations between individuals and contexts, including through relationships among the individuals that comprise those contexts.
Rigorous developmental science involves three necessary and sequential steps:
- Describing relevant features of the individual and context involved in the developmental process;
- Explaining the relations among those individual- and context-level features; and
- Optimizing those relations based informed by the evidence (e.g., regarding what works, for whom, in what ways, at what times, and why).
These steps might thus be described as: (1) operationalizing and measuring the individual- and context-level variables of interest (e.g., through multi-informant and mixed qualitative and quantitative methods); (2) assessing the interrelations among those variables (e.g., through longitudinal data collection and analyses); and (3) adapting, enhancing, and scaling programs and policies based on findings (e.g., through researcher-practitioner partnerships).
Research and evaluation efforts therefore necessarily evolve over time—from description, to explanation, to optimization. New initiatives (e.g., workshops and events) will be assessed through formative evaluations, which will then inform formal research questions and designs with summative and outcome evaluations.