Evaluation is a way of proving and then improving. It involves asking research questions about your service or activities, collecting evidence to answer those questions, and then analysing and acting on the results.  If it’s been a while then here is a little reminder of the steps involved:

Step 1. Clarify your objectives

Evaluation always begins by deciding on a specific project to evaluate. What do you want to prove or improve and what will you do with the information? For example, you might want to find out how to improve your art workshops to build a bigger audience, or to understand and prove how people are benefitting from your heritage site beyond their visit. What resources do you have to evaluate?

Step 2. Choose your evaluation tools

The way you go about gathering evidence will be dictated by the questions you ask and the kinds of information you want to collect. They can include traditional techniques such as interviews, focus groups, surveys and observations. Arts and cultural organisations often gather evidence from work produced as part of the project, such as collaborative works, photographs and films. Do you want a participatory approach where you service users help guide the evaluation? There are pros and cons for each tool. Ideally you’ll need a robust sampling strategy and mix of tools, which often includes both qualitative and quantitative information.

Quantitative data is numerical or statistical data and helps you get an overall picture of what is happening from a large sample of people. For example what percentage of people would recommend your museum to their friends. Qualitative data is much more detailed information gathered from a smaller number of people in greater depth. It provides information on people’s motivations, experiences and their attitudes. It can explain the decisions behind people’s behavior.

Step 3. Collect your evidence

There are numerous methods of collecting evidence for evaluation. You will need to know that your capacity to collect and collate evidence is manageable. What time and money and skills do you have to collect evidence? Who will you collect evidence from, what methods are appropriate? Are you collecting evidence that can be interpreted effectively? You will need to ensure proper permissions as well as know your responsibilities under the Data Protection Act.

Step 4. Interpret the evidence and draw conclusions

Making sense of your evidence is the fun part, but it can require specific skills. Can you collate numerical data into tables, graphs or charts so it is easy to understand? Can you look for patterns, correlations and trends to answer your research questions without bias. You may need to use statistical analysis software or understand how to carry out thematic analysis of qualitative material. Have you answered your original research questions? Do you need to further research?

Step 5. Share your findings and act on the results

Evaluation is worthless if you do not use the results. Once you’ve shared your findings with your colleagues and stakeholders discuss what changes you can make to your service and delivery. Agree on a plan to incorporate your findings into your practice. Your changes may be slight tweaks or a radical improvement in the way your organisation meets the needs of your audience. If you can’t act on the findings yourself who do you need to influence? Your evaluation should provide an evidence base that helps argue the case for more resources to implement needed improvements. And of course, you should plan to evaluate how successful any new changes have been! When you become familiar with evaluation and see the benefits it will become a way of thinking and an integrated part of what you do.

Contact me now to see how you can get the most out of your project evaluation