New evaluation tools to enhance your access and attainment-raising activities

How to evaluate better?

How to enhance the evaluation process is a recurring question faced by higher education providers (HEPs), professionals, and evaluators within the sector. In response to this challenge, TASO – in close partnership with the sector – has developed a new tool to help conduct better evaluations: The Mapping Outcomes and Activities Tool (MOAT).

The Mapping Outcomes and Activities Tool (MOAT)

At TASO, we have been working with the sector to design and develop an evaluation tool that will support and encourage practitioners, evaluators and any other individuals keen to improve the rigour of their evaluation. There is no silver bullet to “what works” to eliminate equality gaps, but this tool is a valuable addition to the ongoing quest for effective solutions.

What is the MOAT?

So, without further delay, let me introduce you to “The Mapping Outcomes and Activities Tool (MOAT)”. In essence, the MOAT can be described as a high-level visual blueprint depicting the relationship between widening participation outreach activities types (e.g., higher education campus visits), sub-activity types (e.g., accommodation tours) and the outcomes that are associated with these activities (e.g., increased intention to attend higher education).

The MOAT seeks to promote better evaluation practices by fostering a consistent approach to labelling, defining, recording, and tracking outcomes and activities.

Why is it important?

It’s important because consistency in mapping activities and outcomes allows for meaningful comparison across contexts (e.g., small specialised HEPs versus larger providers), enhances the validity (i.e., consistently operationalised outcomes to avoid misinterpretations) and increases the replicability and reliability of research findings.

Application of the MOAT

TASO has developed two mapping tools:

• • The pre-entry MOAT is specific to pre-entry widening participation (WP) outcomes and activities. It is used to assist in the planning and evaluation of outreach programmes. For example, when planning an intervention, one of the ways the MOAT can be used is to develop a Theory of Change (ToC) by informing an evidence-based approach to selecting activities and outcomes relevant to the intervention.
  • The attainment-raising MOAT (AR-MOAT) is specific to attainment-raising (AR) outcomes and activities such as subject-specific tutoring or homework support. The AR-MOAT is embedded within the pre-entry MOAT, beneath the skills and attainment activity type. The AR-MOAT is similar to the pre-entry MOAT, which visually maps the relationship between the activity subtypes (e.g., revision workshops) and the outcomes associated with these activities (e.g., increased subject knowledge).

What next?

TASO has been working with the Office for Students (OfS) and the sector’s three national tracking services – the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT), Aimhigher West Midlands (AHWM), and the East Midlands Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Partnership (EMWPREP) to embed the mapping tools on their platforms. Each of the tracking services is currently exploring the integration of the tools and will update their membership about how to use the tools as part of the tracking services in due course. TASO has worked collaboratively with the three trackers to foster consistency in evaluation planning and implementation across the sector.

TASO hopes that through collaboration with the three national trackers, we can encourage and facilitate the development of consistent coding and tracking of outcomes and activities, thereby improving research rigour and evaluation practices in the HE sector.

Find out more about the MOAT here.