Billy Wong & Lydia Fletcher recently wrote a piece on how implementation and process evaluation can help us reach our goals and impact, whilst understanding how we got there. Read the whole story over on TASO.

Although we may know exactly where we want to end up on our journey towards a more equitable higher education experience, exactly how we get there is not always so straightforward. Much like taking a bus, the journey might be straightforward with no delays or  diversions.  In the access and participation context, a Theory of Change acts as a useful plan or road map of the journey to the outcome. This is necessary and, alongside an evaluation plan, can provide a structured route. However, it is not the whole story.

Implementation and process evaluation, in conjunction with impact evaluation, can help us to know whether we are still on track for the journey, to gather more real-time information and make necessary adjustments along the way. It can help us to understand exactly how we have (or haven’t!) arrived at our intended destination.

The journey matters as much as the destination and we need to ensure that our evaluation reflects this. By embracing a real-time evidence-based approach, we can ensure our journey is not only directed by logic and assumptions but is navigated by lived experience and evidence. This should offer us meaningful as well as measurable impacts, and ensure that we end up where we want to go, knowing how we got there.

Read the full blog here.