The term participatory evaluation is commonly understood as stakeholder
involvement in evaluation decision making and is generally accepted as a means of
increasing the use of evaluation information. In spite of the popularity of participatory
evaluation, there are few empirical studies which explain the casual processes of the
participation-use relationship and few theories of participatory evaluation. Furthermore, it
is not yet known what variables mediate participation and use, or what evaluation
methodology best identifies these variables.
This dissertation was designed to test causal relations between participation and use
in a proposed model of participatory evaluation. The constructs in the model were
Participative Climate, Level of Participation in Decision Making, Influence in Participative
Decision Making, Process Outcomes, and Instrumental and Symbolic Use. An intervening
mechanism design (Chen, 1990) was used to test the hypotheses that (a) Participative
Climate, Level of Participation in Decision Making, and Influence in Participative Decision
Making predict Process Outcomes and (b) Process Outcomes predicts Instrumental Use and
Symbolic Use.
The sample included 315 elementary and secondary teachers who participated in the
1995/1996 British Columbia (B.C.) School Accreditation Program, which is a participative
school evaluation program sponsored by the B.C. Ministry of Education. Structural
equation modeling was used to test the fit of the model. Overall, the analysis indicated that
both hypotheses were tenable and the model was a plausible representation of the data.
Furthermore, cross-validation strategies indicated that the model would likely replicate in other independent samples. Specifically, the findings indicated that (a) teacher participation
in pre-evaluation decisions, (b) influence in decision making, and (c) teacher perception of
the participative process mediated the relationship between Participative Climate and Use of
evaluation information. Moreover, teacher perceptions of Process Outcomes is a key factor
in understanding the nature and function of participatory evaluation. The model tested in
this study provides an empirically based explanation of how participatory evaluation can be
expected to work and thereby provides a basis for further development of a theory of
participatory evaluation. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/8572 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Turnbull, Barbara |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 6919983 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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