Short Abstract

Reflective practice models can strengthen evaluation cultures by supporting collective learning, sensemaking and interpretation of findings. This presentation shares practical examples of using reflective practice to embed evaluative thinking across teams, organisations and partnerships.

Description

How can using reflective practice models help build evaluation cultures?

Building evaluation cultures is as much about mindset and group dynamics as it is about process and structures. When evaluation encounters reflective practice, transformative shifts can occur in the way we and our organisations learn, interpret and make meaning throughout the evaluation cycle.

Reflective practice developed in disciplines including teaching, social work and medicine as a powerful approach to learning from professional experiences, and using this learning to improve practice for the future. “Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one's actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning.” (Schon, 1983). This definition can be applied beyond the individual to describe evaluation at a project, organisation or system level.

In order to build strong, inclusive, inquisitive evaluation cultures it is necessary to support people, teams and organisations to expand the framing of evaluation as a purely technical or bureaucratic process, and develop the capacity and space for evaluative thinking and sensemaking. Reflective practice models offer an opportunity to do just this, but how to practically apply them in an evaluation context remains underexplored.

In my experience as an evaluator and facilitator, I’ve found time invested in designing and delivering bespoke reflective practice workshops for teams involved in evaluation can be highly effective for embedding evaluation cultures. They can also be a valuable feature of learning partner relationships, an increasingly popular form of support for organisations, partnerships or programmes that focuses on enabling, analysing and embedding learning alongside or as part of an evaluation process.

Experienced reflective practice facilitation can help navigate power dynamics within groups and hold space for difficult conversations when things have gone wrong. Reflective practice is also a useful method for involving and engaging non-evaluators in evaluation, particularly around the interpretation of data and learning and turning insights into action.

In this presentation, I will share up to three practical examples from my work alongside a reflective practice facilitator and trainer with a background in the mental health sector:

1. Embedding reflective practice as a framework for ongoing learning or process evaluation, to enable iterative insights to be fed back into a programme in real time

2. As a tool for supporting a team or partnership to understand and process when something has gone wrong, a relationship has broken down or findings indicate perceived “failures”

3. During the analysis and reporting stage, as an alternative to conventional validation workshops, to deepen collective understanding and ownership of results