This is a semi-structured interview protocol designed to... - Elicit policymaker perspectives on the contributions that research makes to policymaking - Examine how, when, and which legislators use research evidence - Investigate the perspectives of policymakers on whether relationships and governing practices are associated with dysfunctional polarization - Explore the perspectives of policymakers on the extent of polarization and research utilization in youth and family policies - Refine community dissonance theory which proposes that researchers can more effectively engage policymakers and improve research use if they better understood the policy community—its inhabitants, institutions, and culture. - Gain insights into how professional and institutional cultures operate in a policymaking body in an effort to improve communication and trust between researchers and policymakers - Understand potential cultural frictions and impediments to the use of research evidence in the policy culture - Explore legislators’ perspectives on how universities and university researchers could better engage with the policy community. [Four interview protocols are attached][1]—one for all legislators, one for legislators nominated as Exemplar Research Users, one for legislators nominated as Youth and Family Champions, and one for key informants. --- ## Analytic Structure The analytic framework follows an iterative coding structure looking at the contributions of research to policymaking as detailed in the [coding manual][4] (Bogenschneider, Day, & Parrott 2019). ### Main Themes The authors include codes focused on research use that emerged from the original development of the instrument: - Persuading others by developing arguments that support one’s view or anticipate and counter opposing views; - Providing a larger context for thinking about issues and an enlightened understanding of the complexity of issues; - Designing good legislation and stopping bad legislation; - Defining problems and raising awareness of why action is needed; - Educating others; - Improving the decision-making process by enhancing debate, dialogue, collaboration and compromise; - Earning the trust of colleagues as a knowledgeable and credible information source; - Asking important questions for policy or political purposes; - Informing one’s position on an issue; - Justifying a pre-existing position on an issue; - Assessing the political and economic feasibility of policy decisions; - Changing one’s position on an issue; - Offering new and emerging ideas; - Explaining a vote on an issue; ### Additional Themes Available from the authors are codes from related research areas that are pertinent to the scope of study: - The authors coded for several dimensions of professional and institutional culture (e.g., work context, interactional preferences, epistemological frameworks, influence loops, focal interests, salient stakeholders), which also refine community dissonance theory (Bogenschneider, Corbett, & Parrott 2019). - The authors coded for several dimensions of institutional culture as identified in community dissonance theory (i.e., salient topics, the decision-making process, internal stakeholders, and epistemological frameworks) to examine the issues, policymakers, and points in the policy process where research is used (Bogenschneider & Bogenschneider, 2020). - The authors coded for the three key components of Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory—the recognition of youth and family problems, availability of research-based policy solutions, and political and economic feasibility of policy solutions to examine polarization and research utilization in youth and family policies (Bogenschneider, Day, & Bogenschneider, 2020). - The authors coded for how partisan youth and family policies are, why they are partisan, the importance of research, the importance of research on youth and family issues, changes in the importance of university research, policymaker world views relevant to public policy, the skills and attributes of effective policymakers, effectiveness strategies to advance youth and family policy, and frustrations of youth and family champions. - The authors coded for mentions of universities and instances of specific advice legislators had for university researchers to explore legislators’ perspectives on universities and how researchers can better engage with policymakers (Day et al., 2019). --- ## Analysis / Analytic Approaches Interviews were human coded line-by-line following the [coding manual][4]. The codes were verified by a second author and discrepancies were resolved by a third person. Discrepancies are reported in all papers with the acceptable range based on Campbell, Quincy, Osserman, and Pedersen (2013). - Campbell, J. L., Quincy, C., Osserman, J. & Pedersen, O. K. (2013). Coding in-depth semistructured interviews: Problems of unitization and intercoder reliability and agreement. Sociological Methods & Research (42)3, 294-320. doi: 10.1177%2F0049124113500475 [1]: https://osf.io/q8f7x/ [2]: https://osf.io/mhakq/ [3]: https://osf.io/sz37v/ [4]: https://osf.io/v9yau