Last week I attended a workshop at Hertfordshire University as part of the ESCAPE project (Effecting Sustainable Change in Assessment Practice and Experience). We are working with the project team in developing an Appreciative Inquiry approach to evaluation.

If you've not come across Appreciative Inquiry (AI) before, it's an approach to transformational change that focuses on the positive. It was developed by David Cooperrider in the 1980's, and has seen growing interest more recently. Essentially, "AI is based on the simple assumption that every organisation has something that works well and these strengths can be the starting point for creating positive change" (Appreciative Inquiry Handbook by Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008).

Preskill and Catsambas have taken AI and refined it for evaluation purposes. This figure gives an overview of how they see the four stages of AI. The ESCAPE team have already undertaken AI interviews to discover what staff really value. The workshop was an opportunity to continue with the Imagine, and Innovate or Design stages. There were presentations on innovative approaches to teaching and learning, and then staff set about imagining what might be possible for their own courses.

Before the workshop, I had seen this post by AI consulting on how fish bone analysis might be used within the Design stage of AI. This looked like a great way of mapping out what could be done in a quick and visual way. So, I adapted this approach for my session at the ESCAPE workshop. With a goal or "possibility statement" in mind, staff were asked to identify what they have to have in place to make the goal happen. It was suggested that staff use Technology, Processes, People, Materials, Culture, Management, and Support from the ESCAPE team as the 'bones' of the fish.

Here's an example of one of the fish bone posters. I was really impressed with the results!

Some people went on to thinking how these actions could be mapped out in a time line. It was great to see how that acted as a motivator by setting out how positive goals might be achieved in the mid to longer term.

Labels: Appreciative Inquiry, evaluation, HE, JISC, transformational change, visualisation

We ran two evaluation workshops last month. Starting each day by exploring what evaluation is. This included some visual representations of how individuals thought of evaluation. Various themes emerged, some related to the overall process of evaluation, with several people referring to evaluation as a journey, some along twisting roads or with occasional diversions along dead-ends that may lead to adapting evaluation strategies. There was also frequent reference to the value of continual reflection, evaluation thus being very much an iterative process where original assumptions may need to be revisited. This was also demonstrated with the view of evaluation of a tree that grows and bears fruit. It also needs to be flexible (also like a tree). There was a lot of discussion of the value of evaluation for capturing learning, although it was noted that capturing the journey is no easy task.

One picture that really caught my attention was this 'evaluation whirlwind', or maybe it was a tornado. I'm not sure what the person who drew it had it mind, but it made me think of evaluation of a process that can pull in all kinds of data, some of which may be messy and windblown, formative evaluation takes place while lots of activity is going on around you, but at the end could filter down to some form of consensus.

Labels: evaluation, JISC, visualisation