Policy Field Analysis:  Audit and Visual Diagram

These two tools provide step by step approach for investigators and teams to understand the institutional environment surrounding a particular policy or program that directly shapes the implementation process at the macro-level (most often the state or region). They can be used by a research team after initial access meetings to help make sense of the institutional environment for the team and enable more shared awareness of how the research question appears/matters to stakeholders who are differentially situated in the field. They can be used in subsequent information gathering in a field to ask informants about relationships or positions related to the policy or program of interest.

These tools are written as if someone is using it with a full research team. However, it can be used by a specific investigator. They also ask some questions – about ‘policy tools’ and ‘implementation resources’ (pg. 2) that aren’t essential for the researcher. Instead, a researcher/research team might ask how the relationships and power in the visual diagram might influence the research process, from shaping research questions to collecting data, interpreting results, or enabling public use of the research.