Twelve tips for planning and conducting a participatory evaluation

Participatory evaluation involves a partnership between program evaluators and stakeholders. This paper provides tips for planning and conducting a participatory evaluation of a medical education program. The tips highlight the need to recognize the importance of judgment in participatory evaluation, assess the appropriateness of participatory evaluation for the setting, determine a predominant stream of participatory evaluation, and select stakeholders for participation carefully. The tips also suggest that one should initiate participation at the program planning stage, engage a participatory evaluator, develop an evaluation framework, associate participatory evaluation with more than just qualitative methods, and use technology to facilitate participation. Furthermore, the tips illuminate that while individuals can use participatory evaluation to build evaluation capacity, it is important that they use three dimensions (i.e. control of decision-making, stakeholder selection, depth of participation) for determining the level of "participatory-ness," as well as publish and reflect on their use of participatory evaluation.