The contributions of scientific realism and critical realism to realist evaluation

Figures & data

Table 1. Three levels of reality (Bhaskar 1975).

	The domain of the Real	The domain of the Actual	The domain of the Empirical
Mechanism	√
Events	√	√
Experiences	√	√	√

Figure 1. Contributions of the different realism tenets to retroductive theorizing and the nature of the generative theory.

Note: The blue arrows are tenets related to the contributions toward theory formulation. The black arrows are related to tenets describing the nature of the formulated theories.

Table 2. Realist tenet, ontological/epistemological basis, and implications for realist evaluation.

Key tenets	The ontological and epistemological basis	Implication for realist evaluation
Stratified ontology	Three levels of reality, the real, actual, and empirical, illustrate how observable and unobservable entities exist in reality.	Logical and analytical support for the existence of relevant mechanisms linking the structure to events. Actual events can be investigated through directed probing questions. Describe any observed events where people or groups acted to change the existing behaviour or adopt a new behaviour.
Open-systems perspective	The world is an open system with a constellation of structures, mechanisms, and other entities responsible for the observable patterns of events.	Identification of the relationships among the programme context, mechanisms, and outcomes Explication of changes to the programme or intervention outcomes.
Emergence	The occurrence of novel qualities from the interactions of existing entities. The effects are contextual – dependent on other structures with generative powers. Mechanisms at a lower level can create conditions for unfolding mechanisms at a higher level.	Identify plausible candidate causal mechanisms and how they interact for the programme outcomes to be observed. Description of the programme outcomes based on the interactions of the emergent properties.
Agent-agent – agent-structure relations	Critical Realism accepts the existence of independent structures that influence actors’ actions in a particular setting while acknowledging the role of these actors’ subjective knowledge and reasoning.	Questions need to investigate the mode of interactive mechanism people display. Identifying programmatic structures, relevant context, and generative mechanisms. What pre-existing social structures and culture existed to affect the implementation and adoption of the intervention or programme, e.g. organizational social structures The formulation of context-mechanism-outcome configurations.
Transitive and intransitive dimensions of reality	The transitive speaks to the changing knowledge of things (how things are understood), and the intransitive relates to the relatively unchanging things we attempt to know – structures and mechanisms.	Employ multiple approaches to support causal analysis based on various data types, sources, analytical methods, investigators, and theories.
Independent Reality	The world’s existence, nature, and structure are independent of human thought, language, conceptual activity, and perceptual experience	Multiple theoretical perspectives Variety of data sources and types
Semantic notion	Scientific theories offer a credible way of capturing mind-independent reality	Selection of context-mechanism-outcome configurations that offers the best explanation. Application of theoretical saturation to guide theory formulation – retrodiction.^a Applying judgment rationality to validate an explanatory theory.
Epistemic notion	The best and most credible scientific theories are well-confirmed and approximately true.	Multiple analytical and methodological techniques can be applied in a realist evaluation inquiry Methodological pluralism.

^a In retroduction we identify individual causal powers and the mechanisms that produce them, and in retrodiction we investigate what mix of causal powers interacted in what way to produce any particular event (Elder-Vass 2015, 81).

Bhaskar, R. 1975. “Forms of Realism.” Philosophica 15 (1): 99–127. doi:10.21825/philosophica.82713.

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Elder-Vass, D. (2015). Disassembling Actor-network Theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 45 (1): 100–121. doi:10.1177/0048393114525858.

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