Hi all,
I'm really glad to see an emerging community of such esteemed company...

It's a massively worthwhile aim, especially to cut through the spin, fad and bluster of common ways of working.
Thanks for setting it up, and I'm glad to be a part of the discussion in the future.
Tom

In reply to John McGurk:

John did you or have you found any evidence where coaching is concerned? I am interested if you could share. What kind of evidence would you be looking for? That the 'coachees' were undergoing an actual coaching programme or their actions/work output after the coaching session should depict a certain behaviour?

In reply to Antoinette:

Hi Antoinette (and John),

There is a lot of evidence on coaching, in fact there are even some meta-analyses (here's one:
www.tandfonline.com/.../17439760.2013.837499) > let me know if you can't find the full text.

I think the evidence you would look for depends on your question. For example, if you want to know whether coaching leads to an increase of (individual) performance you should look for controlled & longitudinal studies. But if you are interested in how people feel about coaching you would instead look for qualitative studies and maybe surveys.

Cheers,
Eric

In reply to Eric:

Hello Eric, there seems to be a problem opening the link you sent. It gives an ''error'' message. And thanks for the tip on coaching.

In reply to Antoinette:

Hello Antoinette, don't know if you got it, but Eric's link works without the bracket at the end! www.tandfonline.com/.../17439760.2013.837499

Hello all,

I don't have any research supporting my opinion but i believe an issue with evidence-based approaches is that there is evidence for anything that you want to prove if you search enough. There is so much information out there, that one can find much evidence for something being 'A' as much as someone can find evidence for something being 'B'.

So how do we solve that problem? Is it a numbers game? See who has more evidence piled up wins the argument?

Regards

In reply to Averkios:

Hey Averkios,

Interesting point for discussion! I personally don't see this as a problem with an evidence-based approach, but as a problem in normal practice that EB can solve. The core assumption of EBP is that good quality decisions require critical thinking and the best available evidence, the latter being established by explicit quality criteria and contextual considerations. So it's not so much about the quantity of evidence rather about the quality and relevance for the context.

Let me try to make it vivid and relatable. EBP includes multiple sources of evidence, among which scientific evidence. As Denise Rousseau explains, the science of work produces evidence-based principles that reflect generalizable truths about human behaviour at work (see ref). One principle can be that feedback harms performance when it threats self-esteem; another principle is that information sharing is a key factor for knowledge workers' performance; another one is that setting specific goals may improve performance more than 'do your best' goals; and the list goes on.

So some existing practices may either incorporate the evidence-based principle, or not. For example, 'scrum', where team members get together at the beginning of the day to exchange information on state of project, is a rather new practice developed in Agile working. When confronted with a new practice we need to critically appraise it to understand whether the underlying principle is valid, meaning to see if it produces intended outcomes. If we were looking at the scientific evidence for scrum we'd hardly find clear and solid evidence because it's a new thing. And maybe every person we speak to would outline long lists of benefits of scrum. However, if critically apprasing the practice we acknwoledge that the underlying principle is information sharing which is related to performance (and what other outcomes?), and we are a team of software developers (knoweldge workers), then we can be confident that this scrum is fit for purpose. This because information sharing, assuming we've looked at the academic research, is a key factor in this context.

In general, an evidence based approach aims to getting very specific about what affects what, in what circumstances and why. In the end, the more an argument is logical and has clear explanations, the stronger the persuasive effect. Critical appraisal of the quality and relevance of the evidence – based on explicit criteria – should be a sine qua non condition to have an evidence-based discussion.

So a core skill in EBP is being able to identify underlying principles in (new) practices, and check the (best available) evidence for these. Science is a good place to look at. So, when someone claims something is A or B, it pays to ask the questions to discover what is the general principle and either ask on what type of evidence it's based (a colleagues' opinion, the opinion of a knowledgeable practitioner that is backed up by a meta-analysis from the scientific literature), or check the scientific evidence ourselves.

Since this is easier said than done, at https://scienceforwork.com we try to help everyone acquiring familiarity with evidence-based principles, to empower practitioners that want to have informed conversations using (also) some bits of trustworthy scientific research.

If you are interested in exploring more about EB-principles you may check here: www.cebma.org/.../Rousseau-OBs-Contribution-to-EBMgt.pdf

Looking forward to hearing your impressions.

Pietro

In reply to Averkios:

Good to get this discussion flowing again. Thanks for the question, Averkios.

In reply to Pietro:

Thank you for your reply Pietro.

What I am taking from your thorough answer-explanation is the critical appraisal of evidence which aims to clarify the relevance of the evidence as well as the type and quality. Excellent stuff.

Could you recommend any topics for a master thesis about EBA?