Abstract
Evaluation experts commonly request program designers to make explicit their ‘theory of change’ so as they can design appropriate methods to investigate the impact of the program. If this theory and its internal ‘program logic’ is not provided, the evaluators must employ their own presumptions about what to investigate. Those devising applied drama interventions may prefer the language of connoisseurship, which conjures the qualitative notion of appreciation. It can be hard to imagine how a collective, aesthetic, and emergent experience can be evaluated quantitatively, let alone by outsiders who may not be oriented to read the aesthetic modalities of the intervention. Applied drama practitioners may fear that an impact study conducted by an external evaluator could miss the value of their work, and judge it against inappropriate standards. What if they measure the wrong things, or fail to value the essential features of the process? Will this then devalue the work, and potentially leave people to presume that applied theatre interventions are simply a form of infotainment? However, to resile from rigorous evaluation is to miss an opportunity to enhance influence. This may require a transdisciplinary effort to make applied drama methods both visible and measurable. It may also require positioning the evaluator as a partner in the co-construction and sharing of knowledge, in this harnessing the tradition of developmental evaluation. A framework is proposed to assist practitioners working towards a creative-evaluative partnership when using applied drama as a pedagogy for social change.
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Cahill, H. (2018). Evaluation and the Theory of Change. In: Freebody, K., Balfour, M., Finneran, M., Anderson, M. (eds) Applied Theatre: Understanding Change. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78178-5_11
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