Presentation and Case Study Evaluation Graduate Decision Analysis

The final two assignment are related to specific policy analysis case studies that we will
investigate and discuss. This is a two part assignment: a presentation on one case study and then a
report about a different case study. Each student will choose a case study from the supplied list and do
an in-class presentation on the work in that policy analysis. These presentations can either be individual
or working with one other student. After these have all been completed, students should choose a
different case study than the one they presented about and write a critical evaluation of that case study.
This way, each student will do a deep investigation of two policy analyses and see the presentations
about several others.

Presentations (in class on 5 and 7 December)

Each student should choose a policy analysis report from the list of reports on mycourses,
working with at most one other student. In order to prevent duplicate presentations of the same policy
analysis, each team should choose a different case study – we will work this out in class to prevent
duplication. You should then read the policy analysis case study carefully and prepare a ~15 min
presentation about it. These presentations will be scheduled for the last week of the class (5 and 5
December).

The presentation should be about the motivation, research design, research methods, and
conclusions of the policy analysis you chose. Therefore, you will need to understand the analysis
yourself, which may require some additional research into the policy issue or methods used. There isn’t
a fixed structure that is required for these presentations, but it is a good idea to answer these questions
during the presentation:

1. What is the issue or concern that the analysis is trying to address?

2. Is there a clear statement of the research questions? What are they?
3. What data sources did they use? Are these the best sources? Do these sources seem reliable?
4. What analytical methods did they use? Does that seem like the best method? Will this method
give reliable results?
5. What were their results?
6. Do the authors have clear policy suggestions that come from the work? How could the results
be useful for policy decisions?
Written Case Study Evaluation (due 15 Dec)

Each student should also complete a written evaluation of a different policy analysis than the
one they presented about. These written reports are strictly individual – no team efforts. It should be
one of the papers that another student presented, probably one that sounded interesting. This written
evaluation should be 3-5 pages, single spaced, and should include a critical evaluation of that policy
analysis.

This evaluation can and should include a description of the content of the policy analysis, similar
to the presentations. But it should also include additional thoughtful evaluation from the student:
relating the analysis back to the ideas from the course, critically evaluating the methods or approach,
and consideration of how this (or similar) analysis could be useful in policy or regulation. Therefore,
while there is no fixed structure to this document, it should address the 6 questions above plus these
additional ones:

7. What elements of this policy analysis relate to the content of the course (which has covered a
wide range of policy concepts from stakeholders to policy design choices)?
8. Is the analysis convincing? Are there assumptions, data inputs, or methods that seem poor or
quite uncertain? If you were the decisionmaker, would you rely on this analysis to craft policy?
9. Can you think of realistic ways to improve the research design in this study?