aes24 International Evaluation Conference

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: Kristy Hornby (Grosvenor), Tenille Moselen (First Person Consulting)

Systems evaluation - many might have heard the term, but few have done one. This session shares two case studies of different systems evaluations and the learnings from these to benefit other evaluators who are conducting or about to begin a systems evaluation.

The session will open with an overview and explanation of what systems evaluation is, in terms of its key features and how it is distinguished from other forms of evaluation. The presenters will then talk through their case studies, one of which centres on the disability justice system in the ACT, while the other takes a sector-wide focus across the whole of Victoria. The co-presenters will share openly and honestly their initial plans for commencing the systems evaluations, how they had to amend those plans in response to real-world conditions, and the tips and tricks and innovations they picked up along the way.

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: 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: Donna-Maree Stephens (Community First Development ),Sharon Babyack (Community First Development, AU)

As First Nations' economies grow and develop, wayfinding of monitoring and evaluation frameworks that meaningfully address the holistic outcomes of First Nations' economic independence are a necessity. Culturally responsive monitoring and evaluation frameworks provide footprints for distinct ways of thinking about the holistic and significant contribution that First Nations' economies make to their communities and the broad Australian economic landscape.
Presenting findings from an organisation with more than 20 years of experience working alongside First Nations' communities and businesses grounded in collective and community focused outcomes, this presentation will highlight key learnings of monitoring and evaluation from First Nations' enterprises. It is an invitation to explore and rethink notions of success by drawing on experiences and Dreams (long-term goals) for community organisations, businesses and journeys towards positive outcomes alongside the role of one culturally responsive monitoring and evaluation approach. Our presentation will provide an overview of our work in the community economic development space and key learnings developed through our monitoring and evaluation yarns with First Nations' enterprises across a national First Nations' economic landscape that includes urban, regional and remote illustrations.

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: 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.