The serendipity of opportunity is something that I talk about all the time in my work at MMU, which coalesces around inequity of opportunity and differential outcomes. After many years I am finally convinced that I can do this research thing! However, I know my expertise is not in evaluation. I can be politically naïve and have blind spots to work that I am impassioned about and inherently biased towards.
The nature of the work that I lead on at MMU means that evaluation is a key skill set I really need to develop. Most importantly, I need to work and collaborate with colleagues who are experts at evaluation. It is here that I will spotlight my amazing data analyst colleagues Rosie Bryce and Stephen Walsh who provide much needed expertise to support our work on addressing degree awarding gap issues.
My long-term aim is that we foster a culture shift towards adopting evaluation as an integral approach to our work on addressing degree awarding gaps and broader differential outcomes, but have been wondering how to go about this. So, imagine my delight when engaging in my usual periodic perusing of the excellent work of TASO with coffee in hand, I stumbled across the invitation to tender to work with TASO to develop Theories of Change and evaluation plans for interventions addressing ethnicity degree awarding gaps. I pulled together a bid, reviewed by a valued critical friend who provided some valuable feedback, and was fortunate that it was successful!
Our project team comprises my brilliant colleagues from the degree awarding gap interventions workstream that I chair, set up by our Pro Vice Chancellor (Education). We were joined by Rosie and Stephen and set to the task!
The project with TASO centred around our flagship institutional intervention called STRIVE 100 which launched in October 2023. The mission of STRIVE 100 is simple:to support the success of at least 100 Black, Asian and minority ethnic students. An integral part of the STRIVE 100 programme is providing targeted student support through a programme designed to create opportunities and conditions for student success.
However, it is also about recognising staff accountability and responsibility in adopting behaviours and practices that do not disadvantage racially minoritised students.
It was wonderful to meet the team commissioned by TASO, because I had worked with both evaluators on other projects before and knew we would be in the safest of hands. It proved to be the case, and the whole project team were an absolute joy to work with. They provided an excellent balance of challenge, support, rationalisation, and logic as well as heart and expertise in their leadership of the project.
The workshops that they ran created an opportunity for us to work collectively in a space that fostered new ideas and encouraged new ways of thinking. For me personally, it was very rewarding to spend time with colleagues who are equally as passionate about addressing degree awarding gaps and also anchor my thinking and approach with pragmatism and kindness.
The entire process has surfaced the importance of evaluation as an integral part of the intervention design phase rather than something that happens at the end. It has been the mechanism to pull together considerations around resource requirements in the broadest sense. And it has helped us really think about contextual factors, processes, systems, policies, norms, and culture in developing a Theory of Change.
As an institution, I feel we are early on in our journey of creating an evaluation culture to support the ongoing excellent work that we are doing in this area.
This project has provided the team with enhanced evaluation understanding and capabilities that will underpin the work that we implement as an interventions workstream across the university. I cannot over-emphasise the impact that it has had on my thinking and practice, and I am sure it will be the start of a new approach to evaluation of intervention work at our institution.
Dr Iwi Ugiagbe-Green, Institutional Education Innovation Scholar (differential outcomes), Reader and Researcher on Race equity, Employability & Education at Manchester Metropolitan University.