News15 December 2023
As part of our commitment to supporting the higher education (HE) sector to conduct rigorous evaluation, TASO promotes the inclusion of robust, transparent and comparable Implementation and Process Evaluation (IPE) standards alongside Impact Evaluation (IE). While IE helps us understand what works, IPE helps us identify what works, for whom, how and why.
Information from IPE is important for understanding how the activities delivered as part of an intervention or programme lead to outcomes and impact on participants (e.g., students). IPE covers a range of dimensions that guide the evaluator to consider whether the key components of an intervention’s Theory of Change – including its inputs, activities, outcomes, change mechanism and impact – are practical and achievable.
Our new project with Nottingham Trent University will develop a suite of evaluation tools including a framework for conducting IPE and templates for completing IPE study protocols and reports. This new guidance will support the HE sector to better understand and conduct IPE.
Emma Vardy, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at Nottingham Trent University:
“We are looking forward to working with TASO to support the HE sector to develop IPE to the highest standard. IPE helps to understand the workings of a programme or intervention and if it is not working what could be adapted in the future. It is an important part of evaluation work to ensure outreach work is having a transformational impact.”
Nottingham Trent University was selected after an open call for suppliers in the summer of 2023.
The results of this project will be available in Spring 2024.
Check out TASO’s existing evaluation guidance while you wait for the new IPE guidance to be developed and published.