From Text Books to Footpaths: Making Real-World Research Stick at the Coal Face

• Date: 21 May 2012
• Published date: 21 May 2012
• Pages: 231-243
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7863(2012)0000013015
• Author: Ian Lambie,Julia Ioane

FROM TEXT BOOKS TO

FOOTPATHS: MAKING

REAL-WORLD RESEARCH

STICK AT THE COAL FACE

Ian Lambie and Julia Ioane

ABSTRACT

When research is complete and f‌indings concluded, is research really just

about publishing f‌indings? Have you ever wondered whether your research

will have any real impact in the world? In our opinion, we believe a bigger

obstacle awaits us at the end of a research project. This being the

implementation of research f‌indings. We share with you our combined

experience spanning over three decades of research – the challenges and

learnings we have gathered along the way as we aim to translate research

f‌indings into real world, everyday practical reality. Our research

experience is generally about human behaviour and psychology within

the forensic population. As a result, the implementation of f‌indings is

crucial to inform policy makers, practitioners, local community agencies

and government departments about the way to work with this population.

In this chapter we provide a practical step-by-step approach to how we

aim to implement our f‌indings in research. We look at the problem of

Perspectives on Evaluating Criminal Justice and Corrections

Advances in Program Evaluation, Volume 13, 231–243

Copyright r2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1474-7863/doi:10.1108/S1474-7863(2012)0000013015

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