User and Stakeholder Involvement in Realist Evaluation

This paper examines the theory, methodology and practice of user and stakeholder involvement in evaluation by focusing on the realist approach to evaluation, a form of theorydriven methodology to evaluate complex social programmes and policies. Recent years have seen a renewed interest in engaging citizen stakeholders in the evaluation of government policy and as a result, the family of stakeholder and user involvement approaches to conduct evaluations has continued to grow. These approaches include collaborative, participatory, empowerment evaluation, co-production, action research, utilization-focused evaluation and so on. The roots of all these evaluation approaches lie in progressive participatory movements to pursue social justice, but the value and values of these practices are contested. As more evaluation approaches emerge and others, such as realist evaluation, incorporate citizen participation in their repertoire of data collection methods, the lack of conceptual clarity leads to ambiguities and hampers efforts to achieve and evaluate with participatory approaches. This paper provides an overview of all these participatory confounding terms, focusing on differences and similarities with the aim to enhance conceptual clarity. Following this, participatory approaches in realist evaluation studies are explored through a scoping review of current participatory methodological strategies in this evaluation approach. This examination identifies three main models of engagement: vague, targeted, and integrated. Drawing from this knowledge, the realist evaluation approach is compared to collaborative, participatory and empowerment approaches, noting that in most realist evaluations the evaluator is in charge and determines data collection methods, leading to a power imbalance. The paper concludes that the purpose of the realist evaluation studies (even those in the more advanced spectrum of participation) is to establish the worth of the programme, consequently pursuing an accountability and not an empowerment purpose.