Faculty of Education - Theses

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Participatory evaluation: recording one school's experience in using evaluation as a process to support development

Harvey, Graeme L. ( 1998)

A participatory evaluation was conducted over a period of two terms to review an Early Intervention Program in an independent school. Using the framework developed by Cousins and Leithwood (1993) an evaluation was initiated with the author as the internal evaluator. Four 'primary users' of the program were recruited as members of the Evaluation Team and collaborated with the evaluator in the evaluation design and implementation. The negotiated focus for the evaluation was the adequacy of the program design and to support this outcome the Evaluability Assessment model (Smith, 1989b) was incorporated into the evaluation design. The evaluation was conducted over a 16 week period and after the conclusion of the project the four Evaluation Team members were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The data indicated that the evaluation was seen as effective in initiating change and as a process of professional and personal learning for those involved. From this information, some of the factors that were seen as assisting the effectiveness of the evaluation process and in supporting the utilisation of the information generated were identified. These were used to develop a broad framework of guidelines for the operation of participatory evaluation context within the school context.