81 - Finding the Narrative – Creating Textual Performance Indicators to Guide Mixed-Methods Evaluation in Educational Programs and Settings

Abstract Information: This poster session engages participants in an exploration of how textual indicators are a compelling and powerful way to engage evaluation stakeholders in an understanding of the value of story. The poster and presenter will focus on examining – through examples used in NSF and US Department of Education-funded projects -- how qualitative and quantitative data can be woven into a narrative of a project’s success and progress.  Information will highlight the collaborative process for creating textual indicators; learn how to convince projects of the utility of these indicators to guide evaluation; and the formative value of creating indicators as a way of clarifying projects goals and activities.  Participants will observe through this poster specifically how a powerful story-narrative serves to make an evaluation truly useful for steering, promoting, and sustaining a project.
Relevance Statement: One of the constant challenges for evaluators is the need to manage and balance expectations related to evaluation and in particular how evaluation will benefit a project in ways that go beyond compliance reporting. I have found that by establishing the idea that an evaluation is in reality a story of a project and its work, I can more effectively motivate clients to engage with evaluation and to anticipate its value to their current and future work. It is my task as a mixed methods evaluator who believes strongly in the power of story to show how data is always more than numbers and how the narrative side of an evaluation is the energy that powers an effective and useful evaluation. This poster highlights the practical and applied value of story in program evaluation.