*3.3. Derivation of the Questions*

The questions that are shown in Figure 4 have been derived from a variety of sources, both inductively and deductively. The central research question was informed by the literature review, which highlighted a knowledge gap. The importance of understanding why the gap existed and how to close the gap had also been identified by a previous survey of 325 engineers [14], in which 88% of responses affirmed that stakeholders wanted to increase their ability to measure SDGs on projects. This was strengthened by a response rate of only 34% stating that they had a "fit-for-purpose" mechanism to measure the SDG impacts [14]. The sub-questions 1–3 shown in Figure 4 were derived from the adoption of the realist evaluation's context–mechanism–outcome (C–M–O) configuration [55,56], which is widely used across clinical research (Pawson et al. 2005) and increasingly also across the social sciences [53]. Pawson and Tilley specifically recommend the C–M–O strategy so that "programme theories can be tested for the purposes of refining them" [55,57]. In this regard, the investigation is not about what works but asks instead "what works for whom in what circumstances and in what respects, how?" [55,57]. The third level of questions for the interviews (shown in the right column of Figure 4) combines the Pawson and Tilley C–M–O framework [55,57] with the survey results [14]. For example, the four contextual questions that were derived from the SWOT analysis were all topical responses from the surveys that engineers had identified as either "blockers" or opportunities [12].
