Story Building
Story building – an inclusive evaluation approach
‘Evaluation’ is a tricky term that often intimidates people, or reminds us of assessments and judgements.
With the story building approach to evaluation, we are simply building up the story of the project, rather than checking, testing or assessing things.
So, based on the things that happen during and as a result of the project, we discover what has been important, what may have changed for people, and insights into the overarching questions the project was asking.
This is a ‘participatory action research’-based approach.
Story building is very flexible, and adaptable to whoever is involved in the process. We will try visual, audio and writing reflection tools, as well as chatting in focussed discussions. We’ll encourage people to collect descriptions, memories and observations, moments or situations that were challenging, what success felt like, and if or how people feel their experiences may be changing their teaching and learning practice, or their thinking about learning through arts approaches.
The expertise and lived experience of those in the project community is central, and as evaluator Anni will pull together all the multiple perspectives on what’s happening (the strands of the overall story) and draw on people’s knowledge to make sense of what’s coming up through the story building process.
This is what we call collaborative meaning-making.
Story building reporting maps the learning and experiences that the project produced, and documents plans for how to use this knowledge in the future.
