Youth participation in evaluation provides several benefits. It develops young people's knowledge for social change, empowers them to have a voice, and strengthens their social development. However, obstacles include time constraints for youth and beliefs that evaluation requires special expertise. When planning participatory evaluations with youth, it is important to consider the context, choose appropriate qualitative or quantitative methods, determine the evaluation type, apply ethical principles, and map stakeholder power. Case studies demonstrate how participatory approaches can increase youth participation and empowerment through capacity building.

1. ENGAGING YOUNG
PEOPLE IN
EVALUATION
U N I V E R S I T Y O F G U E L P H
E D R D * 6 0 0 0
R A N A T E L F A H , 2 0 1 6

2. PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
• Theoretical Overview
• Participatory Evaluation
• The Role of Young People in Evaluation
• Declaration of Principle for Youth Participation in Community Research and Evaluation.
• Youth Participation in Community Evaluation
• Benefits of Youth Participatory Evaluation
• Obstacles of Youth Participatory Evaluation
• The Stages of Planning Participatory Youth Evaluation
• Case Study 1: The “MTGK” program
• Case Study 2: The “No limits” Project
• Conclusions
• References

3. THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES; ACTION RESEARCH AND
EMPOWERMENT EVALUATION
(POWERS, J., TIFFANY, J. 2006).
• They have evolved over the past several decades, where they encourage oppressed or
marginalized groups to collectively study the issues and conditions that affect their well being.
• Participatory research relies on local knowledge and emphasizes the involvement of non-
academics who have expertise as individuals who live the research issue.
• Earlier in participatory research projects, which have addressed international development
issues or community development, have engaged adolescents as subjects or respondents, and
not as resources or partners in the discovery of the new knowledge. Moreover, Young people’s
knowledge and understanding have often been undervalued or dismissed as invalid.
• Youth participatory research have roots in various related fields such as action research,
community development and empowerment evaluation.

4. WHAT IS PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION
Participatory evaluation
Checkoway & Richards-Schuster (2009)
Is a process in which people joint together and develop knowledge for action and change.
It encompasses persons involved in program evaluation, community assessment, and policy analysis.
It could be a formal process that needs significant resources or informal one that addresses few questions, such
as what are you trying to accomplish, how well are doing, and how could you improve.

5. THE ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN EVALUATION
HART’S LADDER (1992,1997)
“LADDER OF YOUTH PARTICIPATION”
Quality of participation Examples
Young People and adults share decision making. When young people have the ideas and invite adults to join them in making decision
through out the project.
Young People lead and initiate action Young people have the initial idea and decide how the project is to be carried out.
Adult-initiated, shared decisions with young people. Adults have the initial idea and young people are involved in making decisions, planning
the project.
Young People are consulted and informed. Adults design and facilitate the project, and young people’s opinions are given weight in
decision making.
Young People assigned but informed. Adults decide on the project and young people volunteer for it
Tokenism Young people are given a limited voice and little choice about what they can say and how
they can communicate.
Decoration Young People take part in an event in a very limited capacity and have no role in decision
making.
Manipulation Adults have complete and unchallenged authority and abuse their power.

6. YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY EVALUATION
• Youth participation in community evaluation, refers to their active participation and real
influence in the decisions that affect their lives, not to their token or passive presence in adult
agencies. In this approach, adults employ efforts to involve young people in the research of
public agencies. The work is done by youth to organize their research projects with or without
adults assistance (Checkoway, B., Richards-Schuter, K., 2009).
• Youth Participation occurs throughout the evaluation process which involves; young people are
involved in identifying appropriate questions; ➣ Planning the evaluation design; ➣ Decide on
appropriate measures and data collection methods; ➣ Gathering and analyzing data; ➣
Reaching consensus about findings, conclusions and recommendations; ➣ Disseminating results
and preparing an action plan to improve program performance (Zukoski,&luluquisen, 2002).

7. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLE FOR YOUTH PARTICIPATION
IN COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
(FLORS, 2008)
Youth Participation in Community Research Evaluation
1- Improves young people ways of knowing, Strategies and methods used to acquire knowledge.
2- Empowers young people, by recognizing the experience and expertise of all young people, and respects their
leadership activities.
3- Builds mutually respectful relationships, by fostering youth- youth and youth-adult working relationships.
4- Equalizes power relationships between youth and adults. Where it builds an environment that respects the
involvement of young people, and adults train youth in decision making and leadership.
5- Involves young people in all stages of the process from defining the problem, to gathering and analyzing data
for decision making.
6- Includes young people continuously in the evaluation process, by clarifying and reflecting upon its content and
purpose.

8. BENEFITS OF YOUTH PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION
(CHECKOWAY& RICHARDS-SCHUSTER, 2009).
• Youth participation develops the knowledge of young people for social action; when they plan to
make changes in community, and use evaluation results as a credible source of information to take
action and improve communities.
• Youth participation enables young people to exercise their political rights, express their own views
and meet with others.
• Youth participation encourages diverse young people to share in the democratization of knowledge,
which enable youth to have a voice beside technical and expert knowledge. for example; evaluation
offers opportunities for young women to develop knowledge in ways which respect gender as a force
for change.
• Youth participation engages young people in a democratic society, it encourages young people to
have real role in their community.
• Youth participation strengthens the social development of young people in various ways; by
increasing their individual involvement, their organizational development, and their ability to create
community change (Checkoway& Richards-Schuster, 2009).

9. OBSTACLES TO YOUTH PARTICIPATION
(CHECKOWAY, B., RICHARDS-SCHUTER, K. ,2009)
Various obstacles that prevent young people from participating in evaluation process, such as;
• Young People are busy and do not have the time to be involved in an evaluation project.
• Young People will not be energized by the absence of adults in the evaluation process.
• Adults consider youth as passive recipients rather than active producers of information.
• Adults believe that evaluation is a process which requires special expertise.
• Adults do not want to share their power with young people.

10. THE STAGES OF PLANNING PARTICIPATORY YOUTH EVALUATION
(STUART, MAYNARD, ROUNCEFILED, 2015)
STAGE ONE
Contextual influences
Determine the context in which evaluation is
done; the context involves mapping the
organizational beliefs, values and practice
regarding evaluation, the values of the
organization regarding young people, the reason
why stakeholders are looking to perform the
evaluation. And to consider any tensions that may
arise between different actors.
STAGE TWO
Methodology
In this stage it is important to weigh up the beliefs
that underpins evaluation.
The paradigm used should includes researcher
beliefs about the nature of reality, about what he
wants to know (ontology), and how he will find
the knowledge (methodology), and what data
(quantitative or qualitative) will give the data.
The results is a choice between – a positivistic or
a scientific way of working. Which focus on
proving an objective truth. Or post- positivistic
way of working, which focuses on understanding
a range of truths from different perspectives.

11. THE STAGES OF PLANNING PARTICIPATORY YOUTH EVALUATION
(STUART, MAYNARD, ROUNCEFILED, 2015)
STAGE TWO: METHODOLOGY
QUANTITATIVE
Includes: survey,
the aim of using surveys is to collect basic
demographic information about participants;
their thoughts; their perceptions and
understanding, awareness, attitudes and
behaviors .
QUALITATIVE
• Includes: key informant interviews, semi
structured interviews, focus group discussions
(FGDs), participatory learning and appraisal
(PLA) techniques (including scoring, voting
and ranking) and observation. The aim of
conducting interviews is to gather in depth
information about activities or outcomes.
While, focus groups generates new ideas, will
strengthen social interaction and contribute to
group development. PLA techniques used to
explore people’s perceptions, elicit their
criteria and understand their choices. Finally,
observation is an informal way of gathering
information by assessing activities.

12. THE STAGES OF PLANNING PARTICIPATORY YOUTH EVALUATION
(STUART, MAYNARD, ROUNCEFILED, 2015)
STAGE THREE
Type of evaluation
whether you are evaluating the outcome or impact
of the work have been done with the youth, or
evaluating the process of working with them.
Impact evaluations measure changes in outcomes,
while process evaluations measures how the
project was delivered.
STAGE FOUR
Ethical principles
Ethical consideration should be taken into account
when working with youth.
Ethics committee members tend to be ensuring when
doing research with young ( who are, by definition,
vulnerable) are treated as autonomous agents.
Therefore, consent must be fully informed, research
must do no harm youth, and their confidentiality must
be protected (Williams, 2006).
Confidentiality and anonymity need to be clearly
explained to young people before they involved in
research (Williams, 2006).

13. THE STAGES OF PLANNING PARTICIPATORY YOUTH EVALUATION
(STUART, MAYNARD, ROUNCEFILED, 2015)
Power
Need to map the stakeholders; the power they hold over other stakeholders in the evaluation
process. Need to reflect on the level of participation at each level of participation.
STAGE FIVE

14. MOVING THE GOAL POSTS KILIFI (MTGK), A COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATION ON
THE COAST OF KENYA, DEDICATED TO EMPOWERMENT OF GIRLS AND YOUNG WOMEN
THOUGH FOOTBALL
(MCKENZIE, FORDE, THEOBALD, 2006).
• MTGK program is based in Kilifi District, Coast Province, Kenya, established in 1999. The organization
promotes and teaches football for girls and young women, and fosters players life skills, such as self-esteem,
confidence and team work.
• The aim of the study is to arrive at the indicators and methods for MTGK, Participatory Monitoring and
Evaluation Strategy.
• A qualitative approach was particularly well suited to this study. All participants were selected purposefully
according to their knowledge, and a number of techniques were used in gathering data, including: key
informant interviews, semi structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), participatory learning and
appraisal (PLA), and observation.
• A main researcher was in charge of the evaluation process and two research assistants were selected from
female players at MTGK. As part of this study, it was anticipated that players would participate in the
planning, tool refinement, data collection and analysis. Therefore, capacity building shaped research team and
planning group to increase participation.
• This process increased the players participation, and empowered them through capacity building. And the
methods, particularly FGDs, and PLA allowed the players rather than MTGK staff or the principal researcher
to identify indicators and methods used in the study.

15. THE “NO LIMITS: PROJECT IN NORTHUMBERLAND
(BOSTOCK, J., & FREEMAN, J., 2003)
• The “No limits” project was funded by Norththumberland Health Action Zone in the UK , which had been set up to
support public involvement, to improve health, increase service responsiveness, and accountability. In this project, a
participatory approach used to involve young people in researching their needs & views of how sources of support can
be improved & developed.
• Young people worked with health workers to develop effective and use-friendly models of health care and improve
young people ‘s access to existing services.
• Young people were involved in research design; to refine the themes to be covered in the research through a
consultation process, they were also involved in managing and undertaking the research, and analyzing and
interpreting the data.
• Focus groups were decided to be used as the primary source of data collection.
• different groups of youth were involved at each stage of the research, with no core group of youth participating
throughout the project : a youth focus group was created to help guide research questions; other youth were involved
as focus group participants, but not moderators; and three (other) youth volunteers assisted with data analysis.
• A participatory approach meant that the recommendations had validity for young people in Northumberland.

16. QUESTIONS
• What are the limitations of including youth in participatory evaluation?
• What additional resources are needed to include youth in the evaluation process?

17. CONCLUSION
Advantages of youth involvement in evaluation; allow understanding to be widely shared and
the change to be pursued with commitment among stakeholders.
If young people are to be actively involved in the evaluation, it is essential to ensure that they
are engaged at earlier stages – at the planning of the project evaluation. This would allow
young people to act as partners in evaluation.
 Qualitative methods used; such Focus Group discussions, Participatory Learning and
Appraisal techniques allow to empower young people, because they place the youth in a
position to make decisions.
It is recommended to use Qualitative methods as they elicit youth’s opinions in an interactive
way.

18. REFERENCES
• Bostock, J., & Freeman, J. (2003) ‘No Limits’: Doing participatory action research with young people in Northumberland.
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 13(6), 464-474.
• Checkoway, B., Richards-Schuter, K. (2009).” Youth Participation in Community Evaluation Research”. American Journal of
Evaluation. Vol.24,No.1,2003,pp.21–33.
• Flors, S. K. (2008). “ Youth Participatory Evaluation: Strategies for engaging Young People”. Published by Jossy-Bass. San-
Francisco: USA.
• Stuart, K., Maynard, L., Rouncefield, C. (2015).” Evaluation Practice for Projects with Young People: A Guide to Create
Research”. Sage Publications LTd. London: UK.
• Williams, B. (2006). “ Meaningful Consent to Participate in Social Research on the Part of People under the Age of 18”.
Research Ethics, 2(1).
• Meckenzie, M., Forde, S., Theobald, S. (2006). “ Development of a participatory monitoring and evaluation”. Evaluation and
Program Planning. 29 (2006) 365-376
• Zukoski, A., Luluquisen, M. (2002).” Participatory Evaluation: What is it? Who do it? What are the challenges”.
• Powers, J., Tiffany, J. (2006). “ Engaging Youth in Participatory Research and Evaluation”. Public Health Management
Practice.