Talk:Theory of Change

Rewrite, deletion, or name change?
This article is not what its name suggests--and certainly not what many of the philosophy and history-focused Wikipedians linking to it think it is. It is not about the set of philosophical questions regarding what constitutes change and how it occurs; it is about a particular usage of the phrase "Theory of Change" (capital T, capital C) in project-planning management guides. The text of the article makes this immediately evident by its contents, BUT it does not in any way acknowledge that its subject is a particular specialized (and capitalized) use of the term, rather than an encyclopedic overview of the generalized sense of the words "theory of change". I leave it to others to decide whether this specialized use deserves its own Wikipedia article--as it stands, the citations are quite sparse given the gargantuan body of text, and said text reads more like a series of abbreviated excerpts from management handbooks than a Wikipedia article. I think it would be reasonable to keep this article (with heavy cuts to the word count and a careful eye put to the removal of opaque management lingo), but move it to a new namespace: something like "Theory of Change (management theory)" or "Theory of Change (methodology)". Is there a philosophical or historical article covering what this page's current namespace--in my view--refers to, or does that need to be written from scratch in this article's place after a namespace move? YarLucebith (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2017 (UTC) YarLucebith (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The sources are not actually consistent about capitalizing it, and that tells me it shouldn't be because writers in English sometimes struggle with the definition of a proper noun. When it down, ditch the shift; I'll circle back to make that change when I have more time.--~TPW 14:14, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with you. Theory of change generally refers to the underlying change mechanisms of an intervention or simply a behaviour change. This article seems instead to focus on an specific methodology. Its looks more like an advertising for this specific methodology and their selling consultants.

I don't have enough time today to look at the issue, but I will look at methods to move the entire article as a method and write a short entry about what a theory of change is, mentioning this whole Theory of change as ONE of the method to develop such a theory for a public intervention or behavior change program. Mathias Hoffnung (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Make etymology section contrasting "hypothesis"?
From all I can tell, "Theory of Change" is an unfortunate synonym to "hypothesis" used in a particular way in a field that historically isn't scientific and so created this term without familiarity to the better term "hypothesis. It would be ideal if any citations can be found to clarify this situation. I found some examples where the superior term "Development Hypothesis" is used: https://www.slideserve.com/zorana/development-hypothesis-or-theory-of-change and https://www.developmentwork.net/resources/usaid-ads-glossary/USAID-ADS-Glossary-1/D/Development-Hypothesis--553/ Backfromquadrangle (talk) 14:02, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Important topic, oddly written
Agree with comments above from 2017 to 2018 that this article needs a major revision. Theories of Change (ToCs), title case, are often developed in program evaluations -- a genre of applied social research. Occasionally the term gets used (incorrectly, in my view) as a methodology, similarly to how the term grounded theory gets misused (it was originally the name for theory grounded in evidence rather than armchair but gets [mis]used as naming a qual method). But I think it makes most sense to explain ToCs as... theories of change... Explanations of why a program is thought to improve outcomes. There are all kinds of ways they can be developed, typically involving workshops with stakeholders such as the program developers. These workshops might be thought of as the method(ology), maybe. Shall try to edit a little over the coming weeks. Andi Fugard &#91;they/them&#93; (talk) 11:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Effects of credit policy on the performance of commercial Bank in South Sudan
CHAPTER ONE

Effects of credit policy on the performance of commercial Bank in South Sudan 102.222.61.230 (talk) 11:32, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * ❌ It is unclear what you want done, or even the relevance of this topic to the subject of this article. Peaceray (talk) 17:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)