Each time that researchers put their heads together to tackle an issue, they do so knowing the problem they wish to solve, who their target audience is, and the likely implications of their work. And seeing as they focus on various research gaps geared at helping different stakeholders, you find that the presentation of their research findings varies.
Along this line, we look at the key differences between policy papers, research briefs, and research reports. What’s more, we walk you through how researchers structure their findings to ensure they are well understood by their audiences, the steps they take when coming up with recommendations, and how their work influences decisions in the real world.
What Differentiates Policy Papers, Research Reports, and Research Briefs?
From a general perspective, it may look like policy papers, research reports, and research briefs are one and the same thing. But they are not. Once you peel back the layers, you realize that these papers are not interchangeable as they serve highly nuanced needs. How so?
Policy Papers
For the most part, researchers aim to be neutral in their work. They come up with null hypotheses, do the work to test them, and present their findings to the world. This unbiased approach ensures that they do not lead their work one way or the other, and we can thank this neutrality for most of the solutions we have in the world. After all, when researching sensitive issues such as climate change or systemic bias, researchers need to avoid allowing their own subjective ideas to influence the trajectory of their work.
However, some situations do not call for neutrality and instead require researchers to take on a stance. And this is where policy papers come into the picture.
The Purpose
With policy papers, researchers are tasked with weighing all the options available to them based on the current research, explaining the pros and cons of these options, and selecting the one that is most practical under the circumstances. This way, anyone who reads the paper can understand what problem exists, what solutions are available, and why researchers believe in a given direction.
Say, for example, that researchers have already established that carbon emissions are to blame for climate change in country X. They can use this research to advocate for the charging of companies that continue to pollute the environment by releasing more emissions. So, they would not just be saying that there was a problem but would be going a step further by coming up with a practical solution.
Who Reads These Policy Papers?
Often, you find that researchers work on policy papers for audiences such as policymakers, advocacy groups, or think tanks. These are usually people who have the power to advocate for or implement changes for the good of society, which makes them ideal as the target audience.
Research Reports
Policy papers may be great at giving direction, but they seldom tell the whole story. For example, researchers may write a paper advocating for the banning of plastic papers because they are polluting City A in country B. And in their paper, they may state that they are basing this on five studies conducted in City A over the past five years. Some people reading the policy paper would accept the recommendations based on the study summaries. But others, as we see in many cases, would want the full story behind these supporting studies. And this additional context is what you get from research reports.
What’s In a Report?
Research reports exist as a means to help people understand everything that was entailed in the study. More importantly, they answer the questions regarding who conducted the research, what was being investigated, when the research took place, where the research took place, and how the data was collected and analyzed. Given the extensive scope of these reports, they are often very lengthy and technical, and this makes them crucial in determining which studies are most reliable in informing decisions.
We should also add that research reports are highly neutral. Rather than giving recommendations on what people can do next, they simply lay out the facts as they are, leaving them open to interpretation. For this reason, researchers often rely on them when coming up with policy papers, as these reports often have raw data.
Take the example of a five-year study on literacy levels in a rural area that shows a decline. The policy paper may argue that the findings are proof that there is a need for more libraries in the area due to the declining literacy levels, coupled with the growing number of school-going children. But the research report would go further than this, as it would share the actual data collected for each time period in relation to how well the children were reading. In this way, people reading the report could determine whether the policy paper was on the right track.
Who Are These Reports For?
While many people are often satisfied with study summaries, there is a good number of people who love analyzing studies for themselves before they can use them to form an opinion. These include scientists, auditors, researchers, oversight bodies, practitioners, and other people who may want full transparency.
Research Briefs
Many people juggle so many things in their lives that they barely have the time to go through policy papers or research reports. After all, if they read the policy paper, they have to go through a lengthy explanation of why the researchers are arguing for something and why they believe they are justified in doing so. And if they read the report, then they likely have to skim through hundreds of pages to get the full picture. Given the time-consuming nature of these activities, people often seek a shortcut, which comes in the form of research briefs.
The Structure of Research Findings
Beyond determining what research presentation best suits their audiences, researchers must also structure their work in a way that their audiences can understand. And to do this, they must follow a logical progression, as follows:
Introduction
As we said, research aims at solving existing problems. Therefore, researchers use the introduction section to explain the current research gap based on what other studies have covered. They also delve into why they believe that addressing this gap is important and who seeks to benefit from their work. Doing this enables their readers to grasp the importance of the research, as well as understand the research methods used.
For example, researchers may find that people who live in food deserts are at a high risk of obesity. They can use this existing research to further explore other social determinants of health in people in these areas, thus adding to this much-needed conversation.
Methodology
In order for research to be considered objective enough for its results to be acceptable, researchers must prove that the steps they took were not only accurate but also free of bias. Thus, they are required to lay out the exact steps they took when determining their sample sizes, populations, data collection and analysis methods, etc. This transparency allows critics, peers, and other experts to review the same data and assess whether they, too, can get the same results.
For example, researchers may state that they had a sample size of 40 families in City C, whom they interviewed over 6 months.
Results
Following their chosen methods, researchers must describe what they have found. At this point, they do not share their opinions or recommendations and instead focus on explaining the statistics using charts, tables, and more. This data allows other researchers or analysts to go through the proof and assess it for themselves.
For example, the researchers conducting a study on food deserts may find that 20% of the families interviewed had no medical insurance. That would just be a fact and not an opinion.
Discussion
Without interpretation, data is just a series of numbers. It is thus up to the researchers to make sense of their results within the context of the real world. Researchers use the discussion section to tie their findings to real-world studies. For example, their research may highlight that only 10% of the families in the food desert cook homemade meals because most of the parents work double shifts and seldom have time to cook. The researchers could then explore the role that limited government infrastructure has on families and how this plays a role in the decisions they make about their health.
Discussion sections allow researchers to answer the questions they had back in the introduction. They also give researchers a chance to state their limitations and how these may have affected their studies. For instance, if researchers only interviewed 40 out of a possible 1,000 families, they could argue that their sample size was small.
Conclusion
Researchers sum up their entire study at the end, where they touch on everything from the introduction to the discussion. Thanks to this, people who may not have time to go through the whole paper can skip to the end and get a clear picture as to the purpose and findings of the study. What’s more, the conclusion also shares recommendations geared toward the stakeholders who seek to benefit from the research.
How Do Researchers Make Recommendations?
Whenever researchers work on policy papers, research studies, or even research briefs, they give their recommendations. While this may seem as simple as looking at the data and offering their input, the process is a bit more involving than this. In fact, it often comes down to the following processes:
Finding the Gap
The findings in studies allow researchers to understand the current state of affairs. But current states are not always ideal. As such, researchers often compare their findings to the goals set by governments or other organizations. For example, if 30% of children are failing in math and the government wants a 0% failure rate, then there is a 30% gap.
Researchers must then understand what is causing the gap by looking at the data in detail. So, if the children were to be lagging because of hunger, then the researchers would recommend a school feeding program in lieu of more tutors, as the key issue would be hunger and not lack of educational resources.
Triangulating
Finding the gap is not always enough to warrant a recommendation. In most cases, you find that researchers have to find the best fit by looking at what existing research says, what has worked in other places, and what the affected people think could work. Any solutions that overlap these three areas are considered the best courses of action.
For instance, if the current research says that lunches are effective in improving school performance, case studies show the same thing, and teachers support the idea, then school lunches would be a great recommendation. But if these three areas of overlap pointed to better outcomes if children had less homework, then this alternative would be the priority.
Feasibility Testing
Sometimes, researchers have great recommendations that would work in an ideal world, but would not be applicable within the context of the situation they wish to solve. Therefore, they often have to run a PESTLE analysis where they look into the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental barriers that their audiences could encounter when implementing the ideas.
For example, school lunches may look great on paper. But after calculating the costs and reviewing school budgets, researchers may realize that this is not economically feasible.
Researchers must ensure that their ideas can pass the PESTLE analysis so as to avoid recommendations that will end up being discarded for being poor fits.
Sequencing
After researchers have come up with several good ideas, they then have to map their implementation. For example, if schools are to provide school lunches, what other measures would they have to put in place for this to work?
By covering everything that must happen for the effective implementation of recommendations, researchers can identify and address the barriers that stakeholders might face during the processes. What’s more, it enables them to provide chronological processes that people can follow, thereby doing away with the guesswork and giving them practical solutions that they can actually use.
For the school example, researchers may find that public schools may have to start running home education classes where the children can participate in making the food, thus lowering the food production costs. And this would require a slight change in the curriculum, which would require approval from school boards. With this chronology, schools would have a clear roadmap if they agreed to the concept.