Using Evaluation for Learning
Overview
Resources in this section are intended to help groups reflect on the findings and processes of evaluations, particularly for learning. Doing so offers several different windows into learning about racial equity and the consequences and processes of structural racism and privilege. For example, in looking at evaluation findings, groups can ask themselves questions like:
- Do quantitative and qualitative data seem to be telling the same story?
- If not, what are the important differences?
- Whose specific truths do the data seem to be reflecting, if any?
- Whose truths do the stories appear to be reflecting, if any?
- What do the differences in findings suggest about the questions asked?
- What to they suggest about the methods used to gather and analyze information?
- Whose perspectives are being privileged in the evaluation findings?
- What can groups do to raise awareness about different truths and their different implications?
- What can groups do to refine evaluation methods going forward to highlight different truths (rather than masking or attempting to reconcile them)?
Similarly, reflecting on the processes of evaluation can provide a window into the groups’ internal group dynamics.
- Whose needs and ideas drove the priority among evaluation questions?
- Was there a process to surface different world-views about how change happens?
- Which groups had power to decide what the evaluation looked at in terms of outcomes and evidence? Who got first crack at seeing the data – that is, whose sensitivities and positions were protected, and whose were not?
- Were the power dynamics and differential consequences of findings negotiated among the various stakeholders in real ways?
- Was the process genuinely inclusive of those with most at stake?
- Who determined who was most at stake?
For more on making meaning of evaluation findings, see Interpretation, and for more on racially equitable processes for planning, implementation and meaning making in evaluation, see Inclusive Evaluations.
Tipsheets
- How Can We Create Reasonable Expectations for the Success Of The Group’s Strategies While Still Being Accountable?
- How Can We Use Evaluation Findings To Reflect On And Adjust Our Work?
- How Can We Make Evaluation And Data Tracking Routine?
Tools
- Strategic Learning in Practice: Tools to Create the Space and Structure for Learning
- Strategies for Financial Sustainability
- Sustainability Map
- Sustainability Planning Process
