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FACULTY OF ARTS & SOCIAL SCIENCES
Widening ParticipationEvaluation considerations
Department of Gender and Cultural Studies
Tess Lea QEII Fellow
Working with young or marginalised people 1
What’s the best approach?
Comes down to:
› What do we want to do?
› How much time have we got?
› Who have we got?
› What resources do we have?
› Who is our target audience?
› Best imaginable outcome for results?
Some techniques
› Interviews
› Observations
› Focus Groups
› Small questionnaires with crisp, manageable questions
› Review of documents, records, media
› Limited archival research
› Performance based methods
- Interactive role playing
› Follow up (cohort) surveys to map changing decisions/perceptions
› Participant led data gathering
Pros and cons
› Focus group
- Economical but risk getting dominant ‘group think’
› Observations
- less intrusive but takes longer saturation to get to patterns
› Interview format/interactive performance based
- flexible and rich but time intensive
› Survey
- larger potential population
- useful for longitudinal or cohort analyses
- not ideal for understanding detail or social complexity
- Also dealing with questionnaire-fatigued target groups
5
Sampling: size versus depth
› If want larger sample, must tame the monster: ask mainly yes/no questions; have only one open-ended question
› If want detail, limit the sample
› Most reliable method for young people is face to face interviews and participatory research
› In any case, design data analysis before you administer instrument of choice
- Clarify what data you actually want and ask for it, not what you think should be asked
- Involve target group in the revisions
- Anticipate and design the data analysis tools (the database and coding systems) before going live
7
Some protocols
› Research shows that poorly worded questionnaires bore young people, or provokes conventional answers – needs to be attractive and easily interpreted
› Also important to avoid having it be another piece of school work
› True consent not possible in power structures
› Thus even more essential instruments are well designed
- Conduct a small trial: test the questions – do people respond as you had hoped? Ask young people how they found it. Gauge reactions and modify
- Limit time required to 15 minutes or less
- Be aware of biased terms – e.g. ‘assistance to the poor’ (positive) versus ‘welfare’ (negative)
- Keep it uncluttered – less is more
- Think about the order – make it a logical progression, not choppy
What are the right questions?
› What is the age group? Gender? Social background?
› What data story do you need to be able to tell and with what ambition (For further funding? Publications?)
- Can’t over-state need for clarity about purpose
› Vignettes of transformational stories are excellent
- Write with journalistic flair
› Combine these with other impact data
- The more ‘factual’ and repeatable over time, the better
8
Youth oriented evaluations that yield convincing data
› Given reality of need to maximise responses in shortest time frame and at least cost, how to get the holy grail of youth-centred evaluations that yield convincing data?
› Many interventions presume a deficit (in esteem, in awareness, in comfort) and rush to fill that, without any primary research
› Foregrounding the students and making the evaluations as student-centred as the interventions vital especially given academic persona as another teacher/adult
› Be creative
9
Brainstorming time 2
Widening Participation
Are we making an impact? How known?
What is meant by/needed for sustainability?
Is it worth expanding/scaling?
What do we not want to be doing more of?
Brainstorming time
› Group discussion of project status in relation to the timelines and matching methods to questions to desired outcomes
› Contact details: [email protected]; 9351 6777