Facilitation Guide for an Integrated Evaluation Methodology: Most Significant Change and PhotoVoice

This facilitation guide offers step-by-step instructions on how to conduct participatory evaluation sessions with communities using two qualitative methodologies, Most Significant Change and Photovoice. The method was developed as part of the Learning for Gender Integration (LGI) initiative, a programme focused on addressing gender inequality in the context of food security. Led by Lutheran World Relief (LWR) from 2012 to 2016, LGI piloted three gender-integrated food security programmes in India, Nicaragua, and Uganda. The project worked with Cultural Practice, LLC (CP) to design and lead a participatory evaluation of the programmes in each of the three countries, and they decided to use a combination of the two qualitative methodologies. The first methodology, PhotoVoice, involved training and equipping project participants with cameras and asking them to photograph people and situations in their lives that demonstrate how gender roles had changed. For the second methodology, Most Significant Change, project staff from partner organisations chose stories that reflected notable changes that had taken place in the roles of women and men in the communities. The Facilitation Guide is for anyone who is interested in an evaluation technique that promotes and facilitates equitable discussion and analysis among different types of stakeholders, with a particular focus on project participants and implementers.

The Guide explains the two methodologies as follows:

The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique - Originally developed by Rick Davies and Jess Dart, this is a participatory qualitative approach designed to identify key drivers for success and to better understand how such successes can be accelerated and sustained. MSC is a bottom-up process of generating stories/narratives of change brought about by a project. Participants share their stories and come to consensus on a single story that best illustrates the MSC. MSC enables evaluators to create a contextual story that illustrates project impacts on individuals, groups, organisations, and implementers. By engaging multiple types of stakeholders in a multilevel evaluation, MSC Technique helps evaluators understand key domains, areas of focus, and impact, while removing some of the problematic power structures typically present in evaluation data collection.

PhotoVoice (PV) - PV was developed by Caroline Wang and Mary Burris (1997) as a participatory action research method designed to empower its users and participants to identify and solve problems in their communities. PV is particularly useful for engaging participants with different literacy capacities in needs assessments, monitoring, and evaluations. Data collection in PV is through photography and oral narratives about the photos, rather than interviews or surveys. Through the use of the cameras to capture images in response to a question, participants maintain control over the data collection. By engaging them in discussions with one another about the descriptive and interpretive meanings of the photos, the participants also maintain control over the analysis. When used in the context of programme design, planning, monitoring, or evaluation, they also have control over application of the research through the development of solutions to perceived problems, suggestions for course adjustment, or recommendations adjustment or recommendations.

The integration of the two methodologies allowed the project to address both logistical limitations and unequal power dynamics among project participants, project implementers, and evaluators. For example, PV offered a good option for engaging women, men, boys, and girls with little or no literacy skills. Overall, “by creating the space for men and women participants and implementers to engage in discussions through photographs and stories to express their different and overlapping perspectives on changes they have experienced, they are able to contribute more equally to analyzing the information for the evaluation. The leveling of the playing field allows for a more nuanced representation and understanding of changes in gender-based power relations linked to changes in agricultural and nutritional practices and outcomes.”

The guide includes an a structure, agenda, and guidance for a workshop for the evaluation team, as well as a structure, agenda, and guidance for facilitators running PV and MSC workshops with project participants. It also includes facilitation notes for stimulating discussion during a combined PV and MSC exhibit.