Evaluation: an approach
Evaluating impact in cultural education can be difficult. A purely quantitative approach often fails to capture the intrinsic outcomes of participating in cultural learning, whereas a solely qualitative learning methodology can sometimes fail to produce comparable data to understand trends.
Our evaluative work has taken several forms:
- Pre- and post- research visit and exchange surveys
- Peer-observation
- Post-lesson surveys for students
- Start- and end-of-week questions for students
- Graffiti walls for students
- Observation
- Photography
- Student and staff reflection sheets
This range of methods has provided a range of data that give varied perspectives on our project.
We have also drawn on good practice in The Cultural Learning Evidence Champion’s Handbook, written by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) as part of its Learning About Culture project. Our Project Leader, Richard Harrison, is one of the RSA’s group of Evidence Champions.
Further reading:
The Royal Society of Arts: Learning about culture
The Royal Society of Arts: Evidence handbook
The Royal Society of Arts: Evidence webinars
