Project Details
Description
This project involves five very different Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) involved in Education for Sustainable Development in a very wide range of project types coming together to investigate two main aims, with academic assistance:
1) to develop more useful indicators to measure the impact of value/behaviour change elements in their ESD projects – at the project level.
This will enable them to better prioritise their resources across a wide range of project types. A considerable range of value-based projects will be considered, involving SMEs, communities and schoolchildren. The newly developed project level impact indicators will be related to those for other levels, e.g. regional, national; and those used in academic arenas. It will be necessary to particularly focus on the development of less established SD indicators such as "" well-being"" which are can be strongly affected by spiritual/faith-based values and activities (Clark and Lelkes, 2005). Indicators for this have been difficult to quantify so far in mainstream discussions, but by focussing at project impact level we believe some can be defined and refined, with CSOs working with academics. Some schools of thought suggest that reinforcing local values will lead more effectively to behaviour changes, leading to larger SD impacts; without ways to measure, such ideas cannot be tested.
2) to improve the environmental impact of projects through advice at ground level.
Three of the CSO participants in this proposal are faith-based whose projects generally focus on social issues more than environmental ones. The RTDs will be asked to outline possibilities to increase the projects’ environmental impact within their current context, leading to suggestions and guidelines for such CSOs to allow them to be more effective at environmental impact even when this is not their main focus. Researchers officers will work extensively in the field on CSO projects, with CSO staff, for both aims."
1) to develop more useful indicators to measure the impact of value/behaviour change elements in their ESD projects – at the project level.
This will enable them to better prioritise their resources across a wide range of project types. A considerable range of value-based projects will be considered, involving SMEs, communities and schoolchildren. The newly developed project level impact indicators will be related to those for other levels, e.g. regional, national; and those used in academic arenas. It will be necessary to particularly focus on the development of less established SD indicators such as "" well-being"" which are can be strongly affected by spiritual/faith-based values and activities (Clark and Lelkes, 2005). Indicators for this have been difficult to quantify so far in mainstream discussions, but by focussing at project impact level we believe some can be defined and refined, with CSOs working with academics. Some schools of thought suggest that reinforcing local values will lead more effectively to behaviour changes, leading to larger SD impacts; without ways to measure, such ideas cannot be tested.
2) to improve the environmental impact of projects through advice at ground level.
Three of the CSO participants in this proposal are faith-based whose projects generally focus on social issues more than environmental ones. The RTDs will be asked to outline possibilities to increase the projects’ environmental impact within their current context, leading to suggestions and guidelines for such CSOs to allow them to be more effective at environmental impact even when this is not their main focus. Researchers officers will work extensively in the field on CSO projects, with CSO staff, for both aims."
Key findings
Are available from https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/212237
Following on from the ESDinds project a further project provided an evaluation of the WeValue toolkit developed for civil society organisations (CSOs). With partners Charles University Environment Center, Prague, Cxech Republic
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
The aim of the toolkit evaluation was to determine whether the WeValue toolkit can assess values-related processes and outcomes in a range of CSOs. Specific objectives were:
> To determine whether WeValue Indicators are perceived by participating CSOs as relevant to their work.
> To determine whether participating CSOs find the Indicators useful in their own local evaluations
> To explore whether the Indicators provided were capable of being assessed in real CSO settings, i.e. whether appropriate assessment tools could actually be developed and applied to generate useful data against those indicators.
> To determine whether the resulting data had adequate face validity, in the sense of being relevant, meaningful and useful to the CSOs; and
> To identify whether any major attitudinal changes occurred for the CSOs due to the application of the WeValue tool.
Field trials of the WeValue toolkit were carried out in three organisations, chosen for diversity. For each one, visiting researchers from the universities worked alongside CSO staff to apply the toolkit in local values-based project or process evaluations of specific interest to them. The objectives above were investigated in each case, but from the field CSO’s viewpoint the main activity was the local evaluation of their individually posed question, using the WeValue toolkit.
The WeValue toolkit with its original components has been shown to fill a known gap in evaluation methods by making tangible previously ‘intangible’ values-based outcomes. It has been successfully used for local evaluations by a range of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and found useful in disparate evaluation contexts – from assessing values-related outcomes of workshops only a few hours in duration, to monitoring interpersonal relationships and implementation processes within longer-term projects.
We suggest that the power of the WeValue approach, and the key to its remarkable applicability, lies in the fact that it is both structured and localisable. By providing an indicator framework which allows localisation to specific contexts, it elicits good engagement and participation, and thus ownership and utilisation of the evaluation results. However, results from a given indicator on the list can be compared across organisations (albeit with some normalisation). WeValue thus provides a bridge between ‘participatory’ and ‘conventional’ evaluation.
The WeValue toolkit with its novel components thus represents a ‘new-generation’ evaluation tool that makes use of key recent ideas in participatory, utilisation-focused and process-based evaluation, which are themselves framed through a values lens compatible with the work of CSOs and other values-based organisations. The toolkit thus shows promise for use with a very wide range of organisations including educational institutions, health care providers, universities and businesses, whether or not they have an explicit commitment to higher values. However, new sets of indicators may need to be peer-generated for each sector.
The toolkit is accessible at the online platform www.wevalue.org, which provides case studies, guidelines and contact details for experienced WeValue evaluators. A ‘library’ of assessment tools, and a variety of training packages for evaluators and CSO staff, are currently being developed.
Following on from the ESDinds project a further project provided an evaluation of the WeValue toolkit developed for civil society organisations (CSOs). With partners Charles University Environment Center, Prague, Cxech Republic
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
The aim of the toolkit evaluation was to determine whether the WeValue toolkit can assess values-related processes and outcomes in a range of CSOs. Specific objectives were:
> To determine whether WeValue Indicators are perceived by participating CSOs as relevant to their work.
> To determine whether participating CSOs find the Indicators useful in their own local evaluations
> To explore whether the Indicators provided were capable of being assessed in real CSO settings, i.e. whether appropriate assessment tools could actually be developed and applied to generate useful data against those indicators.
> To determine whether the resulting data had adequate face validity, in the sense of being relevant, meaningful and useful to the CSOs; and
> To identify whether any major attitudinal changes occurred for the CSOs due to the application of the WeValue tool.
Field trials of the WeValue toolkit were carried out in three organisations, chosen for diversity. For each one, visiting researchers from the universities worked alongside CSO staff to apply the toolkit in local values-based project or process evaluations of specific interest to them. The objectives above were investigated in each case, but from the field CSO’s viewpoint the main activity was the local evaluation of their individually posed question, using the WeValue toolkit.
The WeValue toolkit with its original components has been shown to fill a known gap in evaluation methods by making tangible previously ‘intangible’ values-based outcomes. It has been successfully used for local evaluations by a range of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and found useful in disparate evaluation contexts – from assessing values-related outcomes of workshops only a few hours in duration, to monitoring interpersonal relationships and implementation processes within longer-term projects.
We suggest that the power of the WeValue approach, and the key to its remarkable applicability, lies in the fact that it is both structured and localisable. By providing an indicator framework which allows localisation to specific contexts, it elicits good engagement and participation, and thus ownership and utilisation of the evaluation results. However, results from a given indicator on the list can be compared across organisations (albeit with some normalisation). WeValue thus provides a bridge between ‘participatory’ and ‘conventional’ evaluation.
The WeValue toolkit with its novel components thus represents a ‘new-generation’ evaluation tool that makes use of key recent ideas in participatory, utilisation-focused and process-based evaluation, which are themselves framed through a values lens compatible with the work of CSOs and other values-based organisations. The toolkit thus shows promise for use with a very wide range of organisations including educational institutions, health care providers, universities and businesses, whether or not they have an explicit commitment to higher values. However, new sets of indicators may need to be peer-generated for each sector.
The toolkit is accessible at the online platform www.wevalue.org, which provides case studies, guidelines and contact details for experienced WeValue evaluators. A ‘library’ of assessment tools, and a variety of training packages for evaluators and CSO staff, are currently being developed.
| Acronym | ESDinds |
|---|---|
| Status | Finished |
| Effective start/end date | 16/12/08 → 15/12/10 |
Keywords
- WeValue
- group shared values
- shared values
- values-based indicators
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