Participatory Evaluation

Participatory evaluation is an overarching term for any evaluation approach that involves program staff or participants actively in decision making and other activities related to the planning and implementation of evaluation studies. The reasons for participant involvement, which vary among different types, include the desire to effect change in individuals, in programs or organizations, and, in some cases, in society at large, as well as building the capacity of a group or institution to conduct additional evaluations. The origins of participatory evaluation are multiple, reflecting roots in disparate traditions and disciplines literally from around the world, each pointing to the importance of participants interactively helping to study their own programs. Examples range from staff in an American social service agency working collaboratively with an evaluator to improve their program's effectiveness to clients of Australian mental health services examining their own experiences in an institution to British educators trying over time to increase their use of data collection and analysis for ongoing improvement to farmers in rural India studying ways to increase productivity.

Participatory approaches are distinguished by several characteristics. First, direct and active participant involvement over time in evaluation planning and implementation is a hallmark of participatory evaluation. It is stakeholder based, which is to say participant or consumer focused, and responsibility for the evaluation can ultimately devolve to those who manage or participate in the program rather than to professionals with evaluation credentials. It is important to note that, in and of itself, participatory evaluation is not a social movement but rather a way to democratize the evaluation process by involving people meaningfully in studies of the programs in which they participate. Second, these approaches foster participant ownership during the evaluation process through a variety of interactive activities—question generation, periodic discussions, collaborative data analysis, reflection sessions, and so on. Evidence suggests that such interaction and ownership increases the likelihood that people will then use the studies' results. Third, the role of the professional evaluator in these approaches is that of partner, facilitator, or coach—a teacher and consultant to program participants, who is willing to share or even relinquish power for decision making in the study, but who is available for technical assistance as needed. Fourth, through the purposeful use of the evaluation process, participatory evaluation approaches may increase—intentionally or not—the evaluation capacity of individuals or of an organization over time. By taking part in studies (i.e., learning evaluation by doing it) participants may better understand the evaluation process and gain program evaluation skills. Weaver and Cousins (2001) provide five dimensions for analyzing participatory evaluation studies: the extent to which stakeholders control decisions, the diversity of individuals selected to participate, the depth of people's participation, the power relations of participants, and the study's feasibility.

The exact nature of people's involvement in participatory evaluations ranges on a continuum from shared evaluator-participant responsibility for evaluation questions and activities to participants' complete control of the evaluation process. At the shared end of the continuum, the evaluator and program staff and/or participants collaborate to identify issues, frame evaluation questions, collect and analyze data, and suggest next steps. The evaluator assumes responsibility for the quality of the process and its outcomes in conjunction with people involved in the program. Ongoing interaction throughout the study ensures its successful implementation and, it is hoped, the use of its results. Although the terms collaborative and participatory evaluation are sometimes used interchangeably, if distinguished, collaborative evaluation is a type of participatory evaluation midrange on the [Page 292]continuum. The notion of working together, of “colaboring,” may suggest more coequal responsibility for the evaluation process, with program people concerned with issues of the evaluation's utility and feasibility and the evaluator concerned with issues of its propriety and accuracy.

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