This session will provide participants with an overview of how best to evaluate complex interventions and deal with ‘small n’ evaluation scenarios. We first rehearse the challenges of conducting evaluations in these contexts and then discuss qualitative and participatory approaches that partially respond to these so-called ‘small n methods’ as an alternative to experimental approaches to establishing causation. We explore the role that these evaluations can have for theory- testing, theory- building, and explaining outcomes.
Speaker
Maren Duvendack has a PhD in development economics from the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. Her key research areas cover applied micro-econometrics, impact evaluation, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, microfinance, replication and reproduction of quantitative analyses as well as research ethics.
After completing her PhD she joined the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC as a Postdoctoral Fellow before joining the Overseas Development Institute in London as a Research Fellow in evaluation and impact assessment. She is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia where she is mainly teaching on the MSc Impact Evaluation for International Development.
Maren has extensively worked on microfinance impact evaluations in India and Bangladesh. She is particularly interested in the link between microfinance, empowerment and reproductive health. She has more recently worked on quantitative impact evaluations for IFAD, DFAT (formerly AusAid), the World Food Programme and the Gates Foundation on a range of themes across South Asia and East Africa. Maren also completed a number of systematic reviews for DFID and for 3ie on microfinance, payments-by-results as well as on the link between government policies and income inequalities.
