Strategies for Researching Programs’ Impact on Capability: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Researchers seeking to assess the impact of a program on the capability of its target audience face numerous methodological challenges. The purpose of our review was to see to what extent such challenges are recognised and what choices researchers made in order to address them, and why. We identified 3354 studies by searching five databases in addition to cross-checking references from selected studies. A total of 71 studies met our pre-defined selection criteria: empirical studies reporting data on how interventions impacted the beneficiaries’ capability, providing sufficient detail on how impact was measured, in English language. Four independent raters assessed those studies on four domains: descriptive information, consideration of causal attribution, operationalisation of capability, and interpretation of findings. Challenges related to capability impact assessment were not widely explicitly acknowledged, and available measures to address these challenges were not being used routinely. Major weaknesses included little attention to causal attribution, infrequent justification of the specific content of capability, and failure to research the constitutive elements of capability and their interactions. Research into a program’s impact on the capability of its recipients is challenging for several reasons, but options are available to further improve the quality of this type of research.