Evaluation of Research Processes and Project Outcomes

Evaluation in xDelia is a continual activity that forms an integral part of our participatory design process and the rapid prototyping approach. We are particularly concerned with understanding how games and sensor technologies can be used to support skill acquisition through deliberate practice, as well as exploring the impact from individual through to institutional level. The choice of methodologies and the way in which it is carried out in terms of the data collection and analysis has a critical impact on how well this is achieved.

The Design and Evaluation framework is based on a participatory and iterative approach, which aims to be ‘useful’ rather than rarified – i.e. formative evaluation that feeds into and informs project activities as they occur throughout the project on an ongoing basis, rather than a more removed summative evaluation which merely reports on project activities towards the end of the project lifecycle. In addition to drawing out specific instances that occur across the project, there are a number of underlying themes we want to explore. For example, the way in which complex inter-disciplinary projects of this kind are coordinated can have a significant impact on how well the project works and the extent to which overarching objectives are achieved. Similarly we want to explore what kind of collaborative activities occurs in the project and the extent to which they are successful or not. Finally what critical moments occur and how do they steer subsequent project work? In keeping with the notion of being participatory, iterative and ‘useful’ the Design and Evaluation framework encourages partners to adopt a critically reflective approach to the evaluation across the project – everyone is asked to reflect on what they are doing; everyone is a researcher/reflector/evaluator. The design and evaluation framework reveals the relationship between the design and evaluation sides of the framework demonstrating how they build on and feed into each other.