Without an intentional focus on high ethical standards and accountability, evaluations may not provide a full and accurate picture of how a program is serving participants, and may perpetuate disparities.
A cornerstone of a successful evaluation process is the participation of those to be served in the evaluation process. Involving grantees, teachers, students, families and communities throughout the process ensures that an evaluation:
Is grounded in lived realities and that its findings are both relevant and actionable;
Includes insights and questions not readily apparent to evaluators, offering nuanced perspectives on real-life impacts, inequities and opportunities for improvement; and
Can increase the credibility and acceptance of the evaluation findings.
Learn More About Ethical and Accountable Evaluations
Chapter 3 of Results for America’s Evaluation Policy Guide focuses on The Power of Incorporating Community. For LEAs, the community may include teachers, students, families and other community members. The chapter includes guidance on how to incorporate community input throughout the evaluation process, ideas on how to overcome common challenges in community engagement, and an exercise to walk LEAs through incorporating teachers, students, families and communities into the evaluation process.
Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a research methodology that recognizes the significant role that youth can play in co-designing research and solutions focused on the education issues that matter most to them. YPAR requires LEA leaders and staff to share decision-making with youth, centering their experiences and voice and recognizing their authority over their educational experiences. KnowledgeWorks’ resource, Youth Participatory Action Research: A Guidebook and Curriculum, provides guidance on how to start and support YPAR in schools, including how to prepare educators for engaging in YPAR.
Community-Based Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a research approach that engages community members as full partners at every stage of the research process, including shaping research questions and empowering community members to collect and analyze data. PAR disrupts historical power imbalances between researchers and communities, generating better research and knowledge. This approach recognizes that deep expertise lies within each community, making research done without community input incomplete and inaccurate. The Conservation Law Foundation’s PAR Field Guide includes guidance on setting up a PAR project, developing research questions and tools, and collecting and analyzing data.
Chicago Beyond’s Why Am I Always Being Studied? aims to level the playing field between researchers and communities during evaluations, moving away from historical power imbalances and protecting against unintended bias in traditional research relationships. The guidebook includes questions and considerations for researchers, community-based organizations, and funders to ensure evaluations reflect community needs, goals, experience and expertise.
Urban Institute’s Community Voice and Power Sharing Guidebook offers practical advice on partnership building, community advisory boards, community-engaged survey development and youth engagement. Urban has also created a guide for holding Data Walks, in which program administrators and service providers empower program participants and community members by sharing program outcome data or research findings with them. Data Walks give participants and community members an opportunity to ground the data in their lived experiences, shedding light on how and why programs and services are serving their community well or not.