Oral History: Centering, Valuing, and Honoring Marginalized Voices in Evaluation

Abstract Information: Evaluations are often framed in terms of their value to programs and organizations. In these conversations, they are anchored in achievement-related values such as outcomes and impact. However, such framings can lead us to overlook or underappreciate the positive role that participating in evaluations can have on stakeholders at a personal level. In doing so, we miss opportunities to ameliorate negative perceptions about the evaluation process. For instance, it is all too common for participants to feel burdened by requests to participate in data collection exercises, which they perceive have few (if any) direct personal benefits. Similarly, evaluation commissioners might see them as an added layer of bureaucracy in the process of securing funding. In turn, some evaluators may harbor concerns about the continued primacy of traditional evaluation methodologies, which center and give authority to particular ways of knowing and knowers, thereby marginalizing certain voices. In this panel, we will share our experience of using oral histories in a longitudinal evaluation of an NIH-funded undergraduate research training program, focusing on how using this method in evaluations can respond to the above concerns in important ways. We will contrast oral histories to extractive data collection practices that can fail to honor participants in the evaluation process. Our experience showed us how oral histories gives primacy to participants' voices by creating space and time for them to engage in active self-reflection. We saw that many participants valued the opportunity to reflect on the previous year(s), viewing the oral history interview as one of the few instances in which they took to look back and appreciate their resilience, accomplishments, and positive relationships. We also saw how participants used the interviews to make sense of challenging experiences, including rejections from graduate programs, serious illnesses, as well as feelings of alienation and anxiety. Importantly, we saw how the oral history method supported participants take control of their story as it placed them and the interviewer on the same plane, as the two individuals engaged in a collaborative relationship of meaning-making. Additionally, the fluidity of the oral history method allowed the interviews to serve as an inlet for diverse ideas and viewpoints from the participants, deepening our understanding of their experience of the program. Furthermore, the benefits that participants received from participating in the process served as a reminder of not only the instrumental value of centering participant voices but also how it can be an ethical signal from evaluation commissioners (and other leaders) that they value participant perspectives and are committed to improving their experiences. The session’s attendees will hear about our experience of transposing this method to the evaluation context, which will include empirical data, practical strategies and lessons over four years of collecting oral histories annually. The newness of the method to the evaluation field (we did not find reference to oral history’s methodological use in evaluation literature) promises for an engaging session as we discuss its potential (and limitations) as a tool for advancing participant voices in evaluation.