On the previous page, the five social impact goals and related outputs are outlined but it was also necessary to gather data about the health and wellbeing outcomes that participation in this project was having for our co-creators.
Evaluating co-creator experience
At the start of the project much time and thought was invested in planning a programme of participant evaluation. The project’s five SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound) social impact goals provided the Museum with a baseline against which to gather evaluation data.
What to measure?
Co-creators from the Visually Impaired Working Group, who were active on the project from the start, because of their prior work on the Seeing Without Sight project, worked with the Project Lead to identify and devise a short list of evaluation questions. These focused on the personal outcomes that they wanted to experience through the project while also aligning with the five social impact goals agreed with the project funder.
The evaluation questions devised with members of the Visually Impaired Working Group focused on measuring:
- increased levels of social connectivity
- newly acquired skills and confidence
- the degree to which they were empowered to advocate for themselves and their community through the project
- the degree to which they felt their work was enhancing disability access and inclusion at the Hunt Museum
How to measure?
After consulting the Visually Impaired Working Group it was agreed that a digital form would be used to gather evaluation but it had to be fully accessible. For this reason, Microsoft Forms, which has an inbuilt screen reading function, was selected to produce the form. It included fields that enabled both quantitative and qualitative data to be collected. The Likert Scale was used for the latter.
The evaluation form was completed at intervals by all co-creators on the different strands of the project. Gathering evaluation data across the strands was challenging because new participants joined these at different times.
Another benefit of using Microsoft forms is that it collates and presents data and highlights key findings. This enabled the Museum and the funders to track improvements in terms of personal outcomes for the co-creators, helping us to assess the social impact of the project.
The video below provides some insight into the evaluation process used during the project. The data presented below was collected in Q2 of the project. Microsoft Forms has collated and presented the data, enabling us to clearly see how participants have benefited from participating in the project. Please note that co-creator names are omitted from this information.
My confidence has grown during the project from socialising and communicating with new people, contributing my perspectives and ideas at our group meetings and by coming into The Hunt Museum in general, as it is a place where I feel understood” – Luke Frawley, Autistic Working Group member and participant in 3D training pictured below.
