Week #5

Hey all,

Another exciting week here at EPI. As I’ve become more familiar with the field that we’re dealing with, I’ve been able to dive a little deeper into the weeds. This week was my first foray into the actual evidence base for many of the theories that we’re dealing with, and I spent a good amount of time reading through studies and evaluating their methodological rigor and interpretation of results. Additionally, I reviewed the way those results were then broadcast to the more general, non-academic public to verify that the messaging was consistent with the content of the study.

As I have been reviewing the actual research studies that support many theories that are put into action by policymakers, I have been unpleasantly surprised by how low-quality some of the research is. Not only in terms of sampling procedure and methodological application, but also in the creative and selective interpretation of results to fit political narratives.

Discussing these insights with my boss, who has so much experience in this field, has been particularly rewarding, as she offers perspectives that I hadn’t previously considered.

I’m a month in (and half way through) my internship and have already found it incredibly insightful. I’m greatly looking forward to the next four weeks.

Apologies for the late blog entry, but my boss was nice enough to give me Monday off, and I took advantage of the 4 day weekend to travel a little, so did not have any time to write my post. I hope you all had a great 4th!

Till next week,

Sebastian