Module details

Your first module will focus on the introduction of fundamental questions, such as:

• What is evidence?
• What is policy?
• How is evidence used in public policy?
• Why is evidence important for effective policymaking?

Take an Intuition Quiz and your first set of Knowledge Check questions, which you’ll perform weekly throughout the course to ensure you’re on track with your learning targets. Join discussions specific to your interests with peers and the Facilitator. Collaborate with your peers on a template exercise.

Your first module will focus on the introduction of fundamental questions, such as:

• What is evidence?
• What is policy?
• How is evidence used in public policy?
• Why is evidence important for effective policy-making?

Take an Intuition Quiz and your first set of Knowledge Check questions, which you’ll perform weekly throughout the course to ensure you’re on track with your learning targets. Join discussions specific to your interests with peers and the Facilitator. Collaborate with your peers on a template exercise.

This module will focus on causality and counterfactual. You will:

• Define counterfactuals
• Discuss the fundamental problem of evaluation
• Calculate a treatment effect in practice
• Establish countermeasures via group discussions

Take your weekly Knowledge Check. You will also participate in two peer-to-peer discussions with Facilitator input.

During discussion sessions and peer activities, you will explore:

• Difference-in-differences (DiD): the basics
• Difference-in-differences (DiD): checking the assumptions
• Regression discontinuity design (RDD): the basics

Submit your Knowledge Check responses. Continue in-depth discussions with your peers and the Facilitator.

Through an example scenario, you will discuss:

• Average effects and subgroup analysis
• How to determine sample sizes
• Measurement

Submit Knowledge Checks responses. Respond to a relevant journal article, your response will be peer-reviewed.

Throughout this module, you will take part in group activities and exercises using an example scenario. You will discuss:

• Research credibility
• Systematic reviews
• Meta-analysis
• Finding evidence

Submit your Knowledge Check responses. Use an online tool to conduct meta-analysis and find evidence online. The Facilitator will comment on your findings.

You will take part in discussion sessions and perform a template activity to learn:

• External validity
• Ways to deal with external validity: aggregation, sub-group analysis, and comparing contexts
• Mechanism mapping
• Fidelity vs adaptation

Submit your Knowledge Check responses. This week you will be part of a template activity, receiving feedback from your peers and the Facilitator.

In this module, you will have faculty sessions and in-depth discussions with your cohort regarding:

• Organising and running an impact evaluation
• Ethics

Continue in-depth discussions with your peers and the Facilitator.

This is your final session. Submission of your individual project is expected. Your project will be marked by peers and the Facilitator will agree on the rubric and timescales for assessment results.

You will submit your final project, collated from work you will submit between modules three and seven, to be reviewed by the Facilitator. In this last week, you will be part of a final peer and Facilitator discussion board. You will also be given the opportunity to share your thoughts on the course with faculty via a discussion board.