Why qualitative evidence can be mechanism evidence
Stories are not only colour. They can show how a change happened — the mechanism — which is exactly what a pathway account needs to test whether value is real and where it travels.
The idea
By Dr Jay Whitehead ·
Qualitative evidence · Mechanisms · Evaluation
A count can show that something changed. It rarely shows how the change travelled. Carefully gathered qualitative evidence can reveal the sequence, relationships and conditions that connect an activity to an outcome.
This makes stories useful as mechanism evidence. A whānau account may show that a warmer whare changed hosting, connection and willingness to invite others home. That does not by itself establish scale, but it can identify a pathway that other evidence should test.
The discipline is to distinguish illustration from evidence, preserve context, look for disconfirming accounts and avoid treating a vivid story as representative without support.
A contribution to discussion
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