Public Issues Education Projects: Meeting the Evaluation Challenges

Evaluating and monitoring routine Extension projects is hard enough. Programs that feature concepts like public issues education (PIE), public dialogue, or civic engagement are even more challenging. Familiar rules and regs of good evaluation still apply, but hints, warnings, and new resources can help. After 10 years of Extension PIE initiatives, there are also examples of evaluations of PIE that can guide planning

Stakeholder effect: A qualitative study of the influence of farm leaders\u27 ideas on a sustainable agriculture education program for adults

This paper considers issues related to farmers\u27 control of program planning for non-formal agricultural adult education1. Discussion is based on an empirical study of a $10 million Canadian sustainable agriculture education program that was initiated, created, and controlled by a coalition of farm organizations, supplanting a traditional role of extension. Theories of participatory extension education provide a theoretical framework for consideration of issues in the case. Participation theory guides the formation of partnerships among extension, communities, industry, and government. In the area of sustainable agriculture, however, stakeholders may conflict, presenting challenges to engagement and decision-making processes. Moreover, agricultural education researchers have produced little data to show effects of stakeholder involvement in program planning, putting the extension system at risk of desiring increased levels of engagement without a knowledge base about potential impacts. The study was conducted over a 3-year period using cultural anthropology and participatory action research. Farmers strongly influenced five program elements: (a) staffing, (b) content, (c) instruction, (d) evaluation, and (e) composition of planning group

Social impacts of citizen science water monitoring programs

The drive to protect and improve surface water quality requires an array of policies, institutions, professionals, and procedures, even in the face of uncertain budgets and an increasing scope of work. Since the 1990s, the concept of “citizen science” has provided a framework under which volunteers supplement the water monitoring duties of scientists by producing more data and, in some cases, expanding their reach (Conrad and Hinchey 2011; McKinley et al. 2017). Volunteers, on the whole, benefit by contributing to society (Lawrence 2006), and by learning about science and environmental issues (Hecker et al. 2018; McKinley et al. 2017; Phillips et al. 2018). Many citizen science programs welcome youth, but this paper focuses on programs for adults. Citizen science programs address many types of science, not just water monitoring. Species monitoring contributes to biodiversity conservation (e.g., bird counts, whale watching, and butterfly migration), and space science and astronomy programs have expanded (Dickinson et al. 2012). Water quality monitoring is considered to be one of the largest activities (Conrad and Hinchey 2011), with program numbers in the United States estimated from 1,675 (Stepenuck 2013) to 1,720 (National Water Quality Monitoring Council 2019). Volunteer water monitoring has provided scientists with more data,

Citizen Science: Evaluating for Civic Engagement

Citizen science programs directly engage the public in collecting data for science-related projects. This paper will investigate the claim that citizen science programs deliver opportunities and outcomes for a specific kind of benefit, “civic engagement.” The paper will identify specific behaviors and conditions that have been used as indicators of citizen engagement in citizen science and discuss probable theoretical bases. Second, the paper will report on progress of an empirical study (a program evaluation) conducted in spring of 2016 of the Iowater Program, a citizen science program managed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which has trained over 5,000 citizens in water monitoring and reporting. The Iowater evaluation will ground the discussion of citizen science in contemporary experiences of the public

Public Participation in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Projects in South and Southeast Asia: A Literature Review

Facilitators of participatory approaches to community development in agricultural and natural resource management settings frequently encounter dilemmas due to embedded social and power structures that potentially interfere with achieving desired outcomes. These dilemmas underscore the need for better facilitation structures and techniques to mediate the complexity of disagreements. This paper reviews the literature on selecting and applying participatory facilitation methods in Asia, focused on South and Southeast Asia. The analysis acknowledges critics of participation and identifies elements for involving marginalized communities when using participatory approaches to increase the likelihood of successful outcomes

Bridging Power Asymmetries in Facilitating Public Participation

Participatory approaches to community development and environmental management frequently cause facilitators to encounter dilemmas related to the structure and choice of methods. Because participation does not occur in power vacuum but rather as embedded social and power structures which potentially interfere, these dilemmas underscore the importance of better facilitation structures and techniques to mediate the complexity of disagreements. This paper will review the literature on selecting and applying facilitation methods in Asia, focused on South and Southeast Asia. The analysis includes critical elements for involving marginalized communities in participatory approaches

Public Issues Education Projects: Meeting the Evaluation Challenges

Evaluating and monitoring routine Extension projects is hard enough. Programs that feature concepts like public issues education (PIE), public dialogue, or civic engagement are even more challenging. Familiar rules and regs of good evaluation still apply, but hints, warnings, and new resources can help. After 10 years of Extension PIE initiatives, there are also examples of evaluations of PIE that can guide planning

Good Intentions, Muddled Methods: Focus on Focus Groups

Are focus groups abused, misused, or overused in Extension? We responded to the challenge of getting Extension focused on the art and science of high-quality focus groups through an educational project. This article describes contemporary challenges of focus group practice and presents the first phase of an educational initiative, which includes a series of educational briefs

Extension and Grassroots Educators’ Approaches to Participatory Education: Interrelationships among Training, Worldview, and Institutional Support

This paper focuses on development of adult educators\u27 commitment to participatory education through the presentation of empirical results from a study of a Canadian sustainable agriculture program. The author argues for an account of professional development that integrates institutional and historical dimensions

Using Delphi to Track Shifts in Meanings of Scientific Concepts in a Long-term, Expert-lay Collaboration on Sustainable Agriculture Research in the Midwest

Dilemmas for ongoing expert-lay collaborations for agricultural conservation include divergence of meaning of new scientific concepts. Delphi method documented stakeholders’ understandings of a new term, “ecosystem services.” Flood mitigation and pest management benefits as ecosystem service attributes were ranked lower by stakeholders than anticipated by scientists. Recreation and aesthetics, and food production, were ranked higher