Susan Kistler on Free Guides to Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change Technique

My name is Susan Kistler and I am the American Evaluation Association’s Executive Director and aea365’s regular Saturday contributor. Are you using video as part of your evaluation work? Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the privilege of speaking with a number of AEA members who are using video in different ways and we are going to develop an aea365 week focusing on video use for evaluation.

Get Involved: Are you using video as part of your evaluation work, whether it be for data collection, analysis, or reporting? If so, add a note to the comments for this post as we’d love to learn about your work!

Lesson Learned – What is Participatory Video? PV brings together a group or community to tell the story of their program or experience. Some AEA members are using PV in evaluation, including colleagues at InsightShare. Here is their explanatory video about participatory video (if viewing this via email, you may need to click back to the aea365 site to see this video).

Lesson Learned – How can PV be used for Evaluation? As one type of PV engagement, InsightShare works with stakeholders to tell the stories of the Most Significant Change in their community. Using the Most Significant Change Technique, evaluators work with stakeholders via a structured process to identify the most significant change – the most significant story of impact – for a program. PV is one strategy for sharing MSC stories.

Rad Resource: During the video week later this year, we’ll hear more from Soleded Muniz at InsightShare – but I encourage you to explore the InsightShare website in the meantime, as they have a wealth of information, examples, and guidance about PV.

Rad Resource – Two Not to be Missed Guides:

Most Significant Change Technique Guide: This free step-by-step guide authored by MSC inventor Rick Davies and his colleague Jess Dart covers everything from how to implement MSC to a more theoretical comparison of MSC to other approaches and epistemologies.

Insights Into Participatory Video Handbook: Available in English, French, Spanish, and Russian, this detailed and beautifully compiled handbook includes guidance for implementing PV, including assistance for facilitators, technical tips, and ethical considerations.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

3 thoughts on “Susan Kistler on Free Guides to Participatory Video and the Most Significant Change Technique”

  1. Pingback: Video in #Eval Week: Soldedad Muñiz on Participatory Video for Monitoring & Evaluation · AEA365

  2. Pingback: Susan Kistler on Thinking Imaginatively for Evaluation Reporting · AEA365

  3. Zoraya Cruz-Bonilla

    I really like the use of participatory video for evaluation. It is a great way to get information that might be otherwise difficult to get–mainly because in a traditional interview, people are more likely to withhold their true opinions. Thus, through participatory video, participants are offered the opportunity to speak in terms that can easily be understood by their peers and illustrate real-life reactions to community topics/issues.

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