Measuring Opportunity Cost in Statistics Using Evaluative Space Grid Items

Challenges to measuring students’ attitudes toward statistics remain despite decades of focused research. Measuring the expectancy-value theory (EVT) Cost construct has been especially challenging owing in part to the historical lack of research about it. To measure the EVT Cost construct better, this study asked university students to respond to items using both a Likert-type response and an Evaluative Space Grid (ESG)-type response. ESG items enable bivariate responses in a single item and permit distinguishing among two different types of neutral attitudes: indifferent and ambivalent. This pilot study evaluates the appropriateness of ESG-type items for measuring the EVT Cost construct by analyzing student response patterns to ESG-type items and comparing them with Likert-type items. Validity evidence is documented using descriptive statistics and graphs, correlations among items, and a trinomial hypothesis test. Internal consistency reliability indices are also reported. Friedman’s Test is used to compare the average response times for items of different types. Results indicate that students can meaningfully respond to ESG-type items in ways that are similar to their Likert-type responses, that students respond to ESG-type items quicker with more practice, and that distinguishing among indifferent and ambivalent attitudes seems appropriate for the EVT Cost construct. These findings suggest that ESG-type items may provide new insights not possible with Likert-type items but also that more research should be conducted to better understand their advantages and disadvantages within statistics education.

Planning for Urban Social Sustainability: Towards a Human-Centred Operational Approach

In Europe, growing concerns about social segregation and social stability have pushed calls to make cities ‘inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ higher on policy agendas. However, how to approach such generic policy objectives and operationalise them for planning practices is still largely unclear. This article makes a conceptual contribution to the operational understanding of social sustainability in urban planning practices. The article argues that, between theoretical concept and operational forms, different evaluative approaches towards social sustainability may be taken. Evaluating three dimensions of policy operationalisations in The Netherlands, we argue that Amartya Sen’s capability approach provides a promising conceptual framework for operationalising social sustainability in cities in Europe and beyond. We compare capabilities with a more commonly applied resource-based conception to show that the former is more accurate and potentially more effective, because it shifts the evaluative space of social sustainability from means (i.e., urban resources) to ends the eventual well-being of urban citizens.

Conceptualising equity in the impact evaluation of chronic disease management programmes: a capabilities approach

Chronic diseases are highly important for the future level and distribution of health and well-being in western societies. Consequently, it seems pertinent to assess not only efficiency of chronic care but also its impact on health equity. However, operationalisation of health equity has proven a challenging task. Challenges include identifying a relevant and measurable evaluative space. Various schools of thought in health economics have identified different outcomes of interest for equity assessment, with capabilities as a proposed alternative to more conventional economic conceptualisations. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the conceptualisation of health equity evaluation in the context of chronic disease management. We do this by firstly introducing an equity enquiry framework incorporating the capabilities approach. Secondly, we demonstrate the application and relevance of this framework through a content analysis of equity-related principles and aims in national chronic disease management guidelines and the national diabetes action plan in Denmark. Finally, we discuss how conceptualisations of equity focused on capabilities may be used in evaluation by scoping relevant operationalisations. A promising way forward in the context of chronic care evaluation may emerge from a combination of concepts of capabilities developed in economics, health sciences and psychology.

A Capability Perspective on Antibiotic Resistance, Inequality, and Child Development

Nussbaum’s capability theory by drawing attention to multiple determinants of wellbeing provides a rich and relevant evaluative space for framing antibiotic resistance. I consider the implications of antibiotic resistance for child development and adult capabilities. There are common risk factors for childhood growth stunting and the spread of infectious diseases in both antibiotic sensitive and resistant forms. The interaction between infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance and growth stunting illustrates a clustering of disadvantage. The control of antibiotic resistance requires wide-ranging cooperative action. Cooperation is predicated on an expectation of equitable access to effective antibiotics. This expectation is confounded by inequality both in access to antibiotics, and in the risk that available antibiotics will be ineffective. Securing child development (and adult capabilities) requires that inequalities both in access to antibiotics and in risk factors for the dissemination and transmission of antibiotic resistance are addressed. Inequality undermines the cooperative activity that is control of infectious diseases and compounds the threat to the securing of capabilities that arises from antibiotic resistance.

The Impact of Social Innovation

This chapter addresses key questions in terms of the evaluation of the impact of social innovation processes. After reviewing the existing approaches to capturing impact, the chapter presents a new Critical Issues Framework for social impact measurement to inform the development of the most appropriate and accurate evaluative space for data collection and analysis. As such it advocates standardization in the process of developing social impact indicators and methodologies, rather than in the metrics and units of analysis themselves. This framework is related to the three elements of the Social Grid in so far as they shape normative models of social impact measurement that entrench marginalization and limit stakeholder voice. Moreover, particular attention is paid to issues around capturing changes in human capabilities and how this relates to beneficiary empowerment and voice. The chapter, thus, offers a framework for optimizing impact measurement processes and systems.

From the capability approach to capability-based social policy

This concluding chapter synthesizes the key messages from the book and presents a framework for future uses of the capability approach (CA) in social policy research and practice. As shown throughout the volume, social policy as a multi-layered research field spans numerous domains, each with their inherent complexities and approaches. Taking policy domains as an evaluative entry point, social policy research seeks to understand their development, processes, aims, implementation and impact from multiple perspectives and actors, including policymakers, professionals and practitioners, and policy recipients. The CA offers a promising way forward in understanding these multiple perspectives as demonstrated by the individual chapters in this volume. We break systematically from the established scholarship in our aim to offer new frameworks for analysing and formulating policies. We propose the use of a capability approach to social policy (see Chapter One), further specified into capability theories (Robeyns, 2017), as illustrated by the conceptual and methodological developments in this volume, synthesized here. Additionally, we discuss a three-tiered translational process for shifting from developing an evaluative space for understanding social policy development, its implementation and effects, towards developing capability-based social policies at a collective level. This final, concluding chapter, briefly summarizes the key arguments of the book to provide a foundation for making this shift.