aes24 International Evaluation Conference

Title: Evaluating sustainability science capacity building: Pathways for early career researchers

Author/s: Lisa Walker (CSIRO)

In the quest for sustainable solutions to pressing global challenges, transdisciplinary approaches, that integrate insights and methods from various fields, are increasingly being recognised as key to driving change. This presentation will share insights from an evaluation of a five-year, $18 million sustainability science research program seeking to not only drive innovation but to also empower the next cohort of early career researchers (ECRs) to coordinate action across research, policy and practice to address complex sustainability problems.
Our formative, mixed-methods evaluation highlighted on-the-job learning, face-to-face engagement and networking as pivotal in building sustainability science capacity. We also found targeted recruitment, research team engagement and the provision of support and resources to supervisors as essential, and sometimes overlooked, components. This work contributes to the broader discussion on how evaluation can enhance the development of sustainability science, proposing a framework that emphasises the individual, team and institutional support mechanisms necessary for effective ECR capacity building.
Novelty in our approach lies in the integration of evaluative practices within the capacity-building process, offering a reflective lens on how transdisciplinary endeavours can be optimised to address sustainability challenges. This is particularly relevant for evaluators wanting to build their own skills, or those of others, to engage on complex sustainability issues. The study also underscores the significance of adaptive learning and evaluation in navigating the complexities of sustainability science, inviting a broader conversation on how evaluation can be leveraged to facilitate meaningful contributions to societal and planetary well-being.

Authors: Shefton Parker, Monash Univeristy; Amanda Sampson, Monash Univeristy

Increasingly, turbulent, and rapidly changing global operating environments are disrupting organisational plan implementation and strategy realisation of institutions. The session introduces a novel organisational collaborative strategic learning and effectiveness model, intended to bolster organisational resilience responses amidst such turbulence.
A scarcity of suitable organisational strategic learning systems thinking models utilising evaluation methodology in a joined-up way, prompted the presenters to develop a model. The model is tailored for strategic implementation in a complex organisational system environment, operating across decentralised portfolios with multiple planning and operational layers. The model amalgamates evaluation methodologies to identify, capture, share and respond to strategic learning in a complex system. It is hypothesised the model will outperform conventional organisational performance-based reporting systems, in terms of organisational responsiveness, agility, adaptability, collaboration, and strategic effectiveness.
The presentation highlights the potential value of integrating and embedding evaluation approaches into an organisation's strategy, governance and operations using a three-pronged approach:
- Sensing: Gathering relevant, useful timely data (learning);
- Making sense: Analysing and contextualising learning data alongside other relevant data (institutional performance data, emerging trends, policy, and legislative reform etc); and
- Good sense decisions: Providing timely and relevant evaluative intelligence and insights to support evidence based good decision making.
The presenters advocate for a shift from viewing evaluation use as a 'nice to have' to a 'must have' aspect of organisational growth and sustainability. The model aims to foster a leadership culture where decision makers value the insights that contextualised holistic organisational intelligence can provide for;

i) Strategic planning: Enhanced planning and strategic alignment across portfolios;

ii) Operational efficiency: Reducing duplication in strategic effort and better collaboration towards strategic outcomes;

iii) Business resilience and sustainability: Improved identification and quicker response to emerging opportunities and challenges; and

iv) Strategic effectiveness: Informing activity adaptation recommendations for strategic goal realisation.

Authors: Kabira Namit (Abt Global ),Kathryn Lee (Abt Global, AU)

This hands-on session is designed to strengthen intuition of causality in non-experimental evaluations among emerging evaluators.

In environments where conventional RCTs are unethical or unfeasible, identifying causal factors within the complex weave of societal factors and individual behaviours presents a significant challenge. Centred on a novel research project from Papua New Guinea, this session navigates this maze through real-world research (exploring the intricate relationship between the consumption of carcinogenic betel nut and its impact on educational outcomes). By focusing on this specific case study, we provide a concrete context for participants to understand the broader implications of causal explorations in fragile and sensitive settings.

Participants will actively engage in small group discussions in a collaborative learning environment where they can practice and refine their skills in causal evaluation by discussing scenarios that are reflective of real-world complexities.

This session aims to move beyond simply documenting correlations, encouraging a deep dive into the underlying dynamics of causal linkages. Through this exploration, we aim to eventually guide participants to discussions on pathways for targeted interventions and policy formulations which take causal chains into account.

Additionally, we aim to spark dialogue on the ethical dimensions of 'activist research,' exploring how evaluators can navigate moral dilemmas while advocating for meaningful change. This hands-on session not only seeks to build evaluative skills but also to inspire participants to consider the broader implications of their work on societal well-being and ethical research practices.

Author Lena Etuk (CIRCA Research, AU)

In this presentation we will outline an approach to culturally inclusive evaluation with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in Australia, its strengths, and its growth opportunities. This approach fills a critical gap in the way evaluation and research with culturally and linguistically diverse communities is traditionally conducted in Australia.

In this presentation we will explain how the Cultural & Indigenous Research Centre Australia (CIRCA) conducts in-culture and in-language evaluation with diverse cohorts of Australians, and how this practice fits within the broader methodological discourse in evaluation and social science more broadly. We will illustrate how our culturally inclusive methodology is put into practice with findings from CIRCA's own internal research into the way cultural considerations shape our data collection process. We will conclude with reflections on how CIRCA might further draw on and leverage standpoint theory and culturally responsive evaluation as this practice is further refined.

Our key argument is that doing culturally inclusive evaluation is a process that requires reflexivity and learning, alongside strong and transparent institutional processes. Combining these approaches creates systemic ways of acknowledging and working within stratified and unequal social systems, inherent to any research. Our findings will advance knowledge within the field of evaluation about how to engage and represent culturally and linguistically diverse community members across Australia.

Authors: Julia Suh (Tobias)

Humans are complex and diverse. To create social change, what do we need to understand about them?

Their behaviours and mindsets are key, but the broader context and systems they operate within paints a fuller picture of the multiple moving parts that need to change simultaneously for sustained impact. These changes can be mapped, with embedded evaluative thinking, building a pathway for formal evaluation.

In this session, experts in Human-Centred Design and social change share their innovative approaches to thinking beyond the project- or program-level goals or organisational level performance indicators. Examples are drawn from direct experiences working across various transformation projects, from reducing child sexual exploitation and preventing academic misconduct to improving the care economy and elevating patient outcomes. They demonstrate how program goals and social change vision can not only be realised together, but also how a combination of strategic prioritisation, collaboration capability building and network can accelerate the process.

Authors: Samantha Abbato (Visual Insights People), Lisa Stafford (University of Tasmania, AU)

Researchers from fields including public health, community, and disability have been utilising film methods such as participatory video and digital storytelling for decades. Co-creation of film narratives for evaluation can engage participants as unique people with lived experiences connected to social and cultural worlds and relationships, including their connection with the community. Evaluation has been reluctant to adopt participatory film methods.

Virtual Reality (VR) animation presents a distinctly participatory approach to evaluation data collection and a new lens for communicating findings. It places the participant in the driver's seat and the evaluation audience, in the passenger seat, alongside them. Using VR stories can increase the potential for the intended audience, including decision-makers, to deeply engage with the information communicated through focused immersion in participant stories using familiarity of local settings.

We present a case study examining the process of collaborating with young people with disabilities to tell their stories of inclusion in Tasmania, Australia. Three young people participated in online storyboarding and script-writing workshops over twelve months to develop short stories of everyday experiences in their community. An introduction to the particpants and their stories, the three completed stories, and a collaborative call to action were made into a set of five connected VR short films. The films were displayed as a report on a website page and for viewing as a complete VR story on a headset.

The presenters examine the process of applying this new VR digital storytelling approach to participatory evaluation. The challenges and benefits of the approach for participants and its impact on the intended audience, including urban planning and design students, are discussed. Using the lessons learned from the case study, recommendations for evaluators considering using participatory digital storytelling and VR animation are made.

Authors: Tamara Van Der Zant (Australian Council for Educational Research), Katherine Dix (Australian Council for Educational Research, AU)

In this presentation we will discuss the diverse and flexible data collection methods suitable for program evaluation in the context of schools. We will discuss the types of evidence that can be used to evaluate social and emotional learning programs and wellbeing initiatives, specifically, and considerations when working with educators, children and young people. We will invite all to participate in discussions about challenges to the evaluation of these programs in complex, real-world contexts (including data quality, confounding factors, system requirements, etc.) and propose methods we use to navigate these challenges.

Optimising program evaluation methods is important because of the ever-growing number of wellbeing programs being offered to schools. Accordingly, the need for high quality evaluation to guide funding decisions and use of programs and initiatives to support student and educator wellbeing in schools has never been greater.

By drawing on comprehensive experience in undertaking wellbeing program evaluations, this presentation will share our lesson learnt and recommendations that should support evaluators in crafting contextually appropriate evaluations. High quality program evaluations, often a requirement for ongoing funding, addresses the growing need for meaningful and accessible evidence that is currently being sought by schools, educators, funders, and policy decision makers.

Authors: Phillip Belling (NSW Department of Education), Liam Downing (NSW Department of Education, AU)

This paper is aimed at early career and experienced evaluators interested in realist evaluation, but with concerns about the time a realist approach might take. The authors respond to this concern with an innovative blending of realist and developmental evaluation. Participants will exit the room with a working understanding of realist developmental evaluation, including its potential for adaptive rigour that meets the needs of policy makers and implementers.

Realist evaluation is theoretically and methodologically robust, delivering crucial insights about how, for whom and why interventions do and don't work (House, 1991; Pawson & Tilley, 1997; Pawson, 2006). It aims to help navigate unfamiliar territory towards our destination by bringing assumptions about how and why change happens out in the open.

But even realism's most enthusiastic practitioners admit it takes time to surface and test program theory (Marchal et al., 2012; van Belle, Westhorp & Marchal, 2021). And evaluation commissioners and other stakeholders have understandable concerns about the timeliness of obtaining actionable findings (Blamey & Mackenzie, 2007; Pedersen & Rieper, 2008).

Developmental evaluation (Patton, 1994, 2011 2021; Patton, McKegg, & Wehipeihana, 2015) is more about what happens along the way. It appeals because it provides a set of principles for wayfinding in situations of complexity and innovation. Realist and developmental approaches do differ, but do they share some waypoints to reliably unpack perplexing problems of practice?

This paper documents a journey towards coherence and rigour in an evaluation where developmental and realist approaches complement each other, and deliver an evidence base for program or policy decision-making that is not only robust but also timely.

We show that, in complex environments, with programs involving change and social innovation, realist developmental evaluation can meet the needs of an often-varied cast of stakeholders, and can do so at pace, at scale, and economically.

Authors: John Gargani (Gargani + Co)

The world has never faced larger problems—climate change, refugee crises, and Covid19, to name just three. And organizations have responded by scaling solutions to unprecedented size—sustainable development goals, global refugee policies, and universal vaccination programs. But scaling is a journey to a destination imperfectly imagined at the onset and difficult to recognize upon arrival. At what point is scaling a program, policy, or product successful? Under what conditions should scaling stop? Or "descaling" begin? Robert McLean and I posed these and other questions to innovators in the Global South and shared what we learned in our recent book *Scaling Impact: Innovation for the Public Good*. In this session, we outline the book's four research-based scaling principles—justification, optimal scale, coordination, and dynamic evaluation. Then we discuss how to (1) define success as achieving impact at optimal scale, (2) choose a scaling strategy best suited to achieve success, and (3) judge success with dynamic evaluation. My presentation goes beyond the book, reflecting our most current thinking and research, and I provide participants with access to free resources, including electronic copies of the book.

Authors: Alli Burness (Tetra Tech), Sharon Marra-Brown (ARTD, AU), Matt Health (First Person Consulting, AU), Monica Wabuke (Tetra Tech, FJ)

Sensemaking is the process of making meaning and distilling the signal from the noise in primary research. Inclusive and transparent sensemaking ensures the critical link is maintained between evidence and insights, that evidence is interpreted correctly, and the views of participants are understood correctly. Using intentional sensemaking approaches with integrity can ensure transparency and logical rigor in an evaluation or research project.

Despite its critical nature, sensemaking can often be the most opaque step in an evaluation process. While replication is a hallmark of good sensemaking, especially in academia, this is not always feasible in the fast-paced world of evaluation. The time required to do sensemaking well, the importance of applying the correct approaches and engaging the correct parties, and the critical role of a lead facilitator can be overlooked or underestimated. By shining a spotlight on this step in an evaluation, this session will highlight inclusive and accessible sensemaking approaches used across the design and evaluation spectrum to identify new or emergent approaches. It will pay particular focus to sensemaking when working in complex systems.

Panellists bring deep experience in evaluation or design research in Australian or international consulting settings. They will touch on what sensemaking approaches can be used to maintain integrity through a rapid or agile sensemaking process common in large or complex evaluations; popular sensemaking processes for coding data and new or emerging methods; and how insights or recommendations emerge from the sensemaking process. The moderator will start the panel by reflecting on the definitions, understanding and application of sensemaking, with an emphasis on inclusive and accessible aspects. Our presenters will then explore methods through this same lens and with a focus on emergent or new approaches. Methods will be presented in a manner that audience members can learn and apply.

Authors: Mallory Notting (First Person Consulting)

The ACT Government implemented a suite of programs over the ten year period between 2012 and 2022 aiming to increase the rates of students actively travelling to and from school. 102 schools in the ACT participated in at least one of the three programs during this time which targeted well-known barriers to active travel, including parental perceptions of safety and infrastructure around school. The programs were intended to contribute towards a range of broader priorities, including health, safety, and environmental outcomes.

This short-paper session will share learnings from evaluating long-term behaviour change at a population level, based on the school active travel evaluation. The evaluation represents a unique case study, as the evaluators needed to look retrospectively over ten years of program delivery and assess whether the combination of programs had created changes within the system and had resulted in the achievement of wider goals.

The presenter will illustrate that the line between short-term and long-term outcomes is rarely linear or clear, as is the relationship between individual interventions and whole of system change. This will be done by summarising the approach taken for the evaluation and sharing the diversity of information collated for analysis, which included individual program data and attitudinal and infrastructure-level data spanning the whole school environment.

Evaluators are often only able to examine the shorter term outcomes of an intervention, even in complex policy areas, and then rely on a theory of change to illustrate the assumed intended wider impacts. The presenter was able to scrutinise these wider impacts during the active travel evaluation, an opportunity not regularly afforded to evaluators. The lessons from the active travel evaluation are therefore pertinent for other evaluations in complex policy areas and may carry implications for program design as the focus shifts increasingly towards population-level, systems change.

Authors: Rochelle Tobin (Curtin University)

Measuring evaluation capacity building is complex, and there are few examples of quantitative measurement tools to enable evaluators to chart progress. WAAC (WA AIDS Council) and Curtin established a five-year partnership to build evaluation capacity within WAAC. To measure progress, a validated tool (Schwarzman et al. 2019) to assess organisational evaluation capacity was modified and combined with another partnership-based tool (Tobin et al. in press). The survey was administered to WAAC staff at baseline (n = 17) and then one year after the partnership was established (n = 19). Significant improvements were seen in individual skills for evaluation tasks, tools for evaluation and evaluation systems and structures. These tools provide a rigorous approach to tracking progress towards organisational evaluation capacity.

Authors: Jolenna Deo (Allen and Clarke Consulting)

Journey mapping acts as a GPS to grasp audience or consumer experience in evaluating policies or programs, highlighting twists, hidden gems, and pitfalls It can be a useful tool to help evaluators capture disparities and competing needs among intended demographics. This session will discuss the journey mapping method, drawing from an evaluation of a Community Capacity Building Program which used journey mapping to illustrate key consumer personas. It will explore the integration of multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive understanding of complex disparities and the cultural and historical contexts in which these arise.

Authors: Gabby Lindsay-Smith 

Using linked Government data sets provide an opportunity to investigate the impact of state-wide programs and policies but are often out of reach for many evaluators, and especially non-analysts. This presentation will detail a non-analyst’s experience incorporating state linked data sets into a recent evaluation of a Victorian-wide family services program evaluation. The presentation will outline tips and tricks for those who may consider incorporating government-level linked data or simulation models into large program or policy evaluations in the future. It will cover areas such as: where to begin, navigating the data and key tips for working with analysts.

Authors: James Ong (University of Melbourne)

As new people enter the evaluation field and as evaluation marches forward into the future, it is important to learn from evaluation theorists that have come before us. My Ignite presentation will argue that modern evaluation is built on evaluation theory, and make the call for evaluators of all levels to learn evaluation theory to:

1. Appreciate how evaluation has evolved;
2. Strengthen their evaluation practice; and
3. Navigate themselves around an ever-changing evaluation landscape.