A011B: Collaborative and Participatory Evaluation

Community members and stakeholders, or those who are directly involved in delivering or receiving a program’s services, are often left out of the program evaluation process. This course explores how involving participants in program evaluation can create a learning community focused on evaluation and improvement. We will learn about common approaches to formative evaluation that require high levels of stakeholder participation. This is an introductory course into the practice of evaluation, with an emphasis on formative, collaborative, and developmental approaches. It is meant for students who will be working or leading in settings where they must collect and use information to build organizational capacity and affect change. Students will acquire essential program evaluation skills, such as understanding and diagramming logic models, communicating with key stakeholders, and generating relevant evaluation questions. Students will practice these skills in an authentic setting by working closely with a real organization and practitioners to document their program theories and proposed evaluation goals. At the end of this module, students will produce a complete program evaluation proposal for their partner organization. Students will also discuss and reflect upon how groups or organizations build capacity to engage participants in their own evaluation and improvement planning.