239 - How to Draft Effective and Meaningful Learning Questions for a Learning Agenda

Abstract Information: One way we empower voices in evaluation is to create a culture of continuous learning. Learning Agendas are being more and more utilized by multiple US Gov agencies including USAID, State Department and Department of Defense Security Cooperation. Many different kinds of evaluations often feed into and inform these broader learning questions of which a Learning Agenda is composed of. In this session participants will learn how to draft effective and meaningful learning questions for a Learning Agenda.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines a learning agenda as: a set of broad questions directly related to the work that an agency conducts that, when answered, enables the agency to work more effectively and efficiently, particularly pertaining to evaluation, evidence, and decision-making. Once the questions are identified, a learning agenda also prioritizes and establishes a plan to answer short- and long-term questions of the highest value across relevant program and policy areas.

Many funders, implementers and partners struggle to formulate learning questions at the right level. There are limitless things that agencies may want to know in order to improve program effectiveness, but some questions are more central than others and resources are limited.
Prioritization allows the agency to make strategic decisions about the key questions that should impact program performance the most to ultimately empower local partners with sustainable development solutions that lead to greater social impact. This iterative approach is grounded in continuous learning: testing what works and what doesn’t, and aligning interventions and programs with agency priorities and conditions even as they shift. There should be a balance between short- and long-term questions of interest to be able to address policy and program issues happening right now versus those that look at longer-term outcomes. This approach also helps to build ownership of programs and overall capacity in support of stakeholder-owned agendas and processes.

In this session participants will learn: Necessary skills to create relevant learning questions within the framework of a learning agenda; Understanding of the characteristics of learning questions, their utility, criteria to consider, and errors to avoid.

The skill building workshop will consist of a short concept presentation (utilizing real case study examples) characteristics of learning questions, their utility, criteria to consider, and errors to avoid; a short discussion on best practices inclusive of example question review; and a participatory exercise allowing participants to practice the skill of drafting 1-2 quality learning questions, map these question to Key Decision Points, corresponding learning activities and the necessary resources to gather relevant data to answer said questions.