Process Use: Intentional Practice or Just Good Practice? anzea 2013 Conference 22–24 July 2013...
-
Upload
hope-hodge -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
1
Transcript of Process Use: Intentional Practice or Just Good Practice? anzea 2013 Conference 22–24 July 2013...
Process Use:
Intentional Practice or Just Good Practice?
anzea 2013 Conference 22–24 July 2013
Alexandra Park, Epsom, Auckland
Michael BlewdenMassey University
Overview
• Background
• Research question/approach
• Case study of findings
• Implications for practice
Process Use
• Learning and development from stakeholder participation in evaluation
• Influence/consequence of evaluation processes
• Distinct from/independent of findings use
e.g. Stakeholder participation…
…enhances willingness to use findings
…develops evaluative thinking or action
…develops shared understanding
…influences the evaluand
Patton (1997) says:
“Evidence of process use is represented by the following kind of statement after an evaluation:
“The impact on our program came not just from the findings but also from going through the thinking process that the evaluation required”
Shaping this study
• Process use:
- enhances value and utility- often an unintentional side-product- more likely if we purposefully seek it
Patton (1997) again
“...the possibility and desirability of learning from evaluation processes as well as findings can be made intentional and purposeful…”
“…instead of treating process use as an informal offshoot, explicit and up-front attention to the potential impacts of evaluation logic and processes can increase those impacts and make them a planned purpose for undertaking the evaluation…”
The question of ‘intent’
Patton infers evaluators may
•choose to deliberately seek process use
•adopt specific practices to achieve it
•increase the value and utility of evaluation
The question of ‘intent’
• …historically, process use more typically regarded as “...an informal offshoot” (Patton, 2007)
• …few methodologies intentionally seek process use…rarely an integrated goal of practice (Morabito, 2002)
• Observations of NZ practice and context
The (research) question
• Why and for what purpose do evaluators seek process use?
• Why do they choose the practices they do to achieve it?
Research Approach
• Process use as ‘sensitising concept’
• Process use as a ‘construction’
• Interpretivist explanation
• Importance of context
Interpretivist explanation
Meaning + beliefs + desires = behaviour
e.g. action X was done because person held belief Y according to which doing X would fulfil desire Z
Process use intent and practice
Traditions
Values
Beliefs explaining beliefs
Practice setting
Beliefs about evaluation
Beliefs about role
Evaluation theory
Evaluation practice
Project setting
Beliefs about
outcomes
Journey to practice
Cultural context
Beliefs about practice
Intent and practice is
‘understandable’
Meaning
Why important
Justifications, reasons Point and
purpose
Expectancies
Embedded ‘rules’
General awareness
and experience of process
use
Process use
examples considered important
and intentional
Participants
• 24 practicing evaluators
• Eligibility criteria
• In-depth face to face interviews
• Auckland and Wellington location
Assumptions • Desirable for evaluators to seek process
use but not necessarily always
• Pursuing process use may have risks
• Understanding, use, relevance or appropriateness of the term not assumed
Evaluation as process
Evaluation as
development
Evaluation as findings
use
Evaluation as capacity
building
Intent and practice
Beliefs about evaluation
Evaluation as intervention
Social betterment
Enabling
Equality
Knowledge is experiential and constructed
Intent and practice
Beliefs about practice
Collaborative, transparent, understandable, trustful
Accountable to relational ethics
and morals
Should address issues of power and
inclusion
Tools and procedures as learning
Intent and practice
Beliefs about role
Should facilitate mutual learning, development, improvement
Responsibility to give back/return value
Should act in the interests of those with less power
Intent regarding process impacts
Intent and practice
Beliefs about outcomes
Data quality
Accept evaluative conclusions/findings
Capacity development and learning outcomes
Critical engagement
Attitudinal/affective change
Equality
Explanations • Findings are ‘ideographic’ - however….
• PU integral and inevitable
• Intent/practice understandable when evaluators are understood as thinking, ‘meaning makers’
• Enhancing process use about debating the evaluator’s mandate, role, responsibility
Reflections
• Do these evaluator beliefs have implications – positive or negative?
• Are there risks to evaluation?
• Could there be process use misuse?
• How should we respond?