Honoring Lived Experience: Life Histories as a Realist Evaluation Method

Abstract

Program participants have been largely excluded as an evidence source in realist evaluations. We test whether and how lived experience as described through life history interviews with pilot program participants can be used as a valid and unique source of data for elucidating context (C)–mechanism (M)–outcome (O) configurations and informing program theory. We use data about “Opening Opportunities,” a program for indigenous adolescent girls in rural Guatemala, to build a theory of change relating to educational attainment. Life histories yield a rich data set that allows probing of quintessential realist questions; capture subtle, hard-to-measure, and longer term contextual factors and mechanisms; elucidate co-occurring CM and MO dyads; help decipher individual- and structural-level contexts; and provide unique additions and refinements to the program theory. Importantly, this work expands potential evidence sources to inform program theory by including the unique insights from those with lived experience.

Theories of Change in Rural Policy Evaluation

“…Theories can be retrospective (developed after a policy has been implemented) or predictive (developed as part of policy development and design). Participatory approaches to theory development can therefore embed stakeholders within both the evaluation and the project design from an early stage (Richardson et al, 2018) such that projects transform social relations between project partners as much as they deliver project outcomes (Apgar et al, 2017).…”

“…Whilst theory driven approaches to evaluation are not common within evaluations of European rural development initiatives, they are frequently deployed within the evaluations of, and used to develop, rural policy in developing countries (Maru et al, 2018;Richardson et al, 2018;Higgins et al, 2018;Nayiga et al, 2014;Thornton et al, 2017;Douthwaite et al, 2017;Apgar et al, 2017;Breuer et al, 2016). Others have shown how theory driven approaches can help evaluations of urban renewal projects (Mehdipanah et al, 2015) in order to reveal the complexity that formal evaluations struggle to accommodate (Stame, 2004).…”