A growing number of scientific studies that lead to real improvements for citizens and society use a methodology we can call “social impactability.” This is important for both researchers and citizens. For researchers, because it enables them to ensure their studies have a real impact and, if they already do, to increase that impact. For citizens, because it helps them identify the scientific studies that, if applied, will improve their lives.
Social impactability is the ability of an action to generate a similar social impact in very different contexts.
Social impactability includes and goes beyond previous concepts. Transferibility means that one action can be implemented in another context. Scalability means that one action can be implemented in a large scale. Replicability means that the impact of one action in one context can be obtained in a different context. Generalizability means that the impact of one action in one context can be obtained in a broader population.
Social impactability often does not require experimental and control groups. Although these two groups are necessary and essential in some types of research, in other cases they have very negative effects on social impact. To give just one example, the scientific studies that have yielded the greatest improvements in educational outcomes have been conducted using a methodological approach that can be termed social impactability.
An educational action at a school that achieves very good results is considered successful only if it is also implemented at other schools that also yield good results, and is not implemented at schools that do not yield such results. When this action is taken to other schools to see if it also works in that new context, there is no need for another school to serve as a control group, since there are already many schools that do not have such action and thus serve as a control group. This avoids experimenting on minors, that is, on the students. When that same action yields similar improvements in results across very diverse contexts, it is considered a successful educational actions.
And the same goes for countries. Few things were as misguided as the “trips to Finland” to see why they were achieving good results. An educational action from a country with very strong results is only considered successful if it is also implemented in other countries that achieve strong results, and not in countries that do not. Based on what we know today, (although this may be refuted in the future with new evidence) out of the top twenty countries in PISA, only one lacks external testing, and it is the one whose results are deteriorating the most: Finland.
If someone tells you that the scientific method always requires a control group and an experimental group, you know that they are unfamiliar with current science and its social impact.
Harvard PhD, Full Professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona, President of the European Sociological Association 2019-2021
1st with the most total citations of all categories, among those authors including in Google Scholar "Social Impact" as one of them.