Communication between researchers and practitioners: findings from a qualitative evaluation of a large-scale college intervention.

Many community-based intervention studies experience problems with collaboration between researchers and practitioners. A preferred strategy appears to be to form community coalitions to carry out the proposed interventions in the community, but doing so risks shifting the focus from intervention objectives to coalition process. As a by-product, coalitions often lack understanding of the project goals and are not given specific instructions on how to implement the intervention. In contrast to conventional wisdom, the Safer California Universities study implemented a very directive approach in collaboration with local liaisons on the participating campuses, even though this approach is seen to risk cooperation or commitment from collaborators. This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study based on interviews with campus liaisons of how the directive approach was perceived on the participating campuses. Findings indicate that the strategy was successful in terms of "getting things done" but could have been improved in terms of liaison involvement in setting objectives, and in finding the optimal level of specificity.