Communication and Interaction

Question 1

What are the three evaluation design options?

Answer 1

Process, Evaluation, and Impact Evaluation

Question 2

Process Evaluation

Answer 2

Involves collecting data in the planning and implementation phases, such as frequency and content of planning meetings, inclusiveness of process, and diversity/representativeness of planners. Process evaluations are done at the beginning and throughout the engagement process.

Question 3

Outcome Evaluation

Answer 3

Assesses change resulting from community engagement, such as change in the way people engage with each other and change resulting from their engagement. Evaluation might involve collecting individual or community level changes in how people engage with each other. Outcome evaluation is conducted at the end of an engagement process.

Outcome evaluation answers the question: To what extent are people in the community engaged?

Question 4

Impact Evaluation

Answer 4

Seeks to establish evidence of causality. It requires random assignment of participants and the use of an intervention group and a control group. This evaluation can be more challenging to implement and costly to do because of the prerequisites needed to be able to conduct it effectively (having a long-standing community engagement program with a lot of data already collected, previous evaluations, and significant time, financial and human capacity to conduct the evaluation).

This type of evaluation answers the question: To what extent can community change be attributed to community engagement?

Question 5

Ripple Effect Mapping (REM)

Answer 5

Method used in evaluation to engage key stakeholders in assessing the impact of community engagement. Participants look back over a period of time and create a visual map of direct or indirect impacts of community engagement.