Guide to Project Evaluation: A Participatory Approach

Chapter 2: Evaluation for Learning

This guide is based on the belief that evaluation can be a useful and positive experience that promotes learning and action. What is learned from project evaluation is as important as what the project produces or creates.

2.1Participatory evaluation

Health promotion activities enable people to take more active roles in defining their health needs, setting priorities among health goals and influencing and assessing efforts to improve their health. Participatory evaluation work supports these activities because it is a collaborative approach that builds on strengths and that values the contribution of everyone involved. While there are other approaches to evaluation, a participatory approach seems most consistent with the goals of Health Canada's strategies and programs.

Principles of participatory evaluation

• Participatory evaluation focuses on learning, success and action.
• The evaluation must be useful to the people who are doing the work that is being evaluated.
• The evaluation process is ongoing and includes ways to let all participants use the information from the evaluation throughout the project, not just at the end.
• Recognition of the progression of change - knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviour - is built into the evaluation.
• The project sponsors are responsible for defining the specific project evaluation questions, the indicators of success and realistic timeframes.
• Participatory evaluation makes it possible to recognize shared interests among those doing the work, the people the work is designed to reach, the project funders and other stakeholders.

For a more detailed examination of these principles, refer to the handout 6, Principles of a participatory approach to evaluation.

2.2 Putting participatory evaluation into practice

Participatory evaluation calls for collaboration among those who share a common interest in improving health. The collaborative process starts at the beginning of a project and continues throughout the life of the project. This type of evaluation is never a one-time, end-of-project event.

Refer to Chapter 9 of this guide, Putting it Together, for a checklist of common points to consider in each stage of project evaluation.

Collaboration allows those involved in the project to

• work in partnership with community groups to do evaluation
• recognize the experience and expertise of community groups
• recognize the health outcomes of the project
• make evaluation questions and findings relevant to all stakeholders
• increase the acceptability of and support for the evaluation process and outcomes
• produce more meaningful results that can be used by both programs and projects to learn how to improve the work being done and to influence policy and program directions.

The activity in the next section - Introducing a participatory approach to evaluation outlines a process for beginning the discussion about this type of collaborative evaluation. You may want to facilitate it yourself with the groups with which you work, or you may decide to copy it and give it to the project co-ordinators to use on their own.

For a thorough discussion of the principles and application of participatory evaluation, we highly recommend the following two resources:

• Keeping on Track. An Evaluation Guide for Community Groups, produced by the Women's Research Centre of Vancouver
• The Royal Society of Canada, Study of Participatory Research in Health Promotion, prepared by the Institute of Health Promotion Research, University of British Columbia.

2.3 Activity: Introducing a participatory approach to evaluation

Topic: Introducing a participatory approach to evaluation

Purpose:	To increase the group's comfort with evaluation To discuss the key principles of participatory evaluation
Suggested uses:	This discussion is useful for a group to have at the beginning of new projects so they can think about and build in evaluation measures right from the start.
Time:	30 minutes
Materials	flipchart handout: Principles of a participatory approach to evaluation
Activity:	Ask participants to work in pairs to prepare responses to the following question: "What does evaluation mean to you?" Record on the flipchart the group's responses. Often at this point you will get both negative and positive comments about evaluation. It is important to acknowledge all the participants' previous experiences with evaluation, good and bad. You can learn from their comments how project sponsors want to make evaluation practical and useful. Distribute the handout: Principles of a participatory approach to evaluation. Divide the participants into small groups. Ask each group to discuss the handout and to identify the three principles of a participatory approach to evaluation that they think are most important for their type of project activity. Bring all participants together again to get the feedback and to discuss their ideas on how these principles could be practiced in their project. Use this time to answer questions about the method. The Keeping on Track manual is a good backup resource to have available. This discussion provides an opportunity to identify the principles that are most important to the group. It sets guidelines to which evaluators will be held accountable.

2.4 Handout: Principles of a participatory approach to evaluation

Participatory evaluation encourages a positive experience with the evaluation of health promotion activities. The key principles of this approach are outlined below. They have been adapted from Keeping on Track, An Evaluation Guide for Community Groups, produced by the Women's Research Centre in Vancouver.

• Participatory evaluation focuses on learning, success and action.
  An important question to ask in evaluation is what we learned about what worked and what did not work. Then we need to ask how can we use these learnings to move to action. The people and groups most directly involved decide what determines success.
  
• The evaluation is useful to the people who are doing the work that is being evaluated.
  The project's goals and objectives - what the project intends to accomplish - must be the standards against which the project work is measured. Evaluators must pay special attention to the project's specific needs and available resources.
  
• The evaluation process is ongoing and includes ways to let all participants use the information from the evaluation throughout the project, not just at the end.
  The material produced for the evaluation must be given back to the participants on an ongoing basis in a format that is useful and clearly written in plain language.
  
• Recognition of the progression of change - in knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviour - is built into the evaluation. To measure people's success in changing knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviour, think in advance about the kinds of changes the project strategies and activities can produce. It is important to describe how these changes can be recognized and measured in a way that is possible and practical within the timeframe and resources available to the project.
  
• The project sponsors are responsible for defining the specific project evaluation questions, the indicators of success and realistic timeframes. Community sponsors of projects must participate in decisions about what questions will be asked and what information will be collected to measure the difference the work made in a given period.
  
• Participatory evaluation makes it possible to recognize shared interests among those doing the work, the people the work is designed to reach, the project funders and other stakeholders. The evaluation must include information and input from the people doing the work, the people who the work is designed to help or reach and the project funders.

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