Evidence‐based practice (EBP) has become a global public management movement to improve constituents' lives through government decision making. However, how civil servants' decisions are influenced by scientific evidence remains unanswered. In this study, we answer two related research questions: (1) How do different elements of evidence impact civil servants' program preferences? (2) How does the rating of evidence influence their program preferences? Collaborating with major governmental and nonprofit agencies that promote the use of EBPs, we invited civil servants from three U.S. state governments to a paired conjoint experiment. Our analysis shows that: Civil servants prefer programs with evidence that is: (1) from their own states; (2) more recent; (3) shows positive effect on people from different demographic groups; and is (4) created by independent government teams and university research teams. We also find the “evidence‐based” rating drives civil servants' preferences toward evidence with higher internal validity.

中文翻译：

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评估美国各州政府的证据使用：联合分析


循证实践 （EBP） 已成为一项全球性的公共管理运动，旨在通过政府决策来改善选民的生活。然而，科学证据如何影响公务员的决定仍未得到解答。在这项研究中，我们回答了两个相关的研究问题：（1） 不同的证据要素如何影响公务员的项目偏好？（2） 证据评级如何影响他们的项目偏好？我们与促进 EBP 使用的主要政府和非营利机构合作，邀请了来自美国三个州政府的公务员参加结对联合实验。我们的分析表明：公务员更喜欢有证据表明：（1） 来自他们自己的州;（2） 较近的;（3） 对来自不同人口群体的人群有积极影响;并且 （4） 由独立的政府团队和大学研究团队创建。我们还发现，“基于证据”的评级推动了公务员对内部效度更高的证据的偏好。