Evaluation from the inside: Participatory evaluation of agricultural research in the Philippines

This paper discusses the experience of a Philippines-based agricultural research program, where participatory evaluation is embedded in a broader, user-centered participatory research approach. Three case projects illustrate and analyze participatory evaluation of agricultural research in a developing country context. Different evaluation types are identified and their use in different phases of the research process is discussed. These field experiences show how “evaluation from the inside” can contribute to effective research planning and implementation, particularly in enhancing sensitivity to user needs and situations. network for user participatory rootcrop R&D sponsored by the International Potato Center in Asia. Under his leadership, UPWARD has increasingly sought to build participatory monitoring and evaluation into the network’s research and development activities. He has a Ph.D. in communication and innovation studies from Wageningen Agricultural University in The Netherlands. Prior joining UPWARD, Campilan worked with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction and the Philippine Root Crop Research and Training Center. His research interests include communication of innovations, institutional linkage development, participatory research methods and tools, and strengthening local knowledge systems. From 1991 until 1997 he was coordinator of Users’ Perspectives With Agricultural Research and Development (UPWARD) network. He was previously based in Latin America. His main research interests include the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of crop genetic diversity conservation and utilization involving ethnobotanical studies, on-farm conservation, and work on seed systems. He is also interested in research on rural enterprise development. He has been actively involved in capacity building initiatives among national agricultural researchers, especially in participatory research methods and planning techniques. He can be contacted CIP-ESEAP, Kebun Percobaan Muara, Jalan Raya Ciapus, Bogor 16610, Indonesia, fax (62 251) 316 264, e-mail: G.Prain@cgiar.org. Her major responsibilities include facilitating the network’s activities on sustainable crop management R&D and on capacity building in participatory approaches and methods. At the UPWARD coordinating office, she is in charge of training, publications, and information management. She has extensive training and hands on experience in the use of participatory methods and tools, particularly through a Philippines project on soil resource management for sweetpotato production. She has an MSc in family resource management and development communication from the University of the Philippines at Los Ba?os. Her research interests include sustainable crop management, strengthening local R&D capacity, and field testing participatory methods and tools.     

Research on cognitive, social and cultural processes of written communication

This article compiles the investigations carried out by a Research Group of the University of Granada, Spain. Its different projects on writing’s cognitive social and cultural processes have been supported by the Spanish Government. This line of research joined together linguistic, psychological, social and cultural contributions to the development of writing from the 1970s. Currently, this line of research develops in collaboration with other European Universities: (a) Interuniversity Centre for Research On Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA), “La Sapienza” University of Rome (Italy); (b) Anadolu University, (Eskisehir, Turkey); (c) Coimbra University (Portugal); (d) University of Zaragoza (Spain); (e) the Institute of Education of the University of London (United Kingdom). The aforementioned collaboration is materializing into projects like the International Master on Multilingual Writing: Cognitive, Intercultural and Technological Processes of Written Communication () and the International Congress: Writing in the twenty-first Century: Cognition, Multilinguisim and Technologies, held in Granada (). This research line is focussed on the development of strategies in writing development, basic to train twenty-first century societies’ citizens. In these societies, participation in production media, social exchange and the development of multilingual written communication skills through new computer technologies spread multicultural values. In order to fulfil the social exigencies, it is needed to have the collaboration of research groups for designing and applying international research projects. International Master. Multilingual Writing Web: , .     

Equivocations on knowledge systems theory: An actor-oriented critique

Knowledge systems theory, in our view, tends to obscure rather than illuminate an understanding of the fundamentals of knowledge processes in society. This tendency occurs primarily because both the theory, and the methodologies that are derived from it, fail to recognize that knowledge processes are social processes, and thereby that knowledge itself has to be envisaged as a social construction. As a result of this omission, knowledge systems theory and methodology can only deal poorly with issues of power and social conflict, and, at the same time, tend to make use of several inappropriate teleological and reifying notions. According to our view, the understanding of knowledge processes will benefit greatly from a more actor-oriented perspective. In such an approach, emphasis is accorded to human agency and the concept of multiple knowledge networks. Central purposes of actor-oriented methodologies then, are to clarify how actors attempt to create space for their own ‘projects’ and to determine which elements contribute to or impede the successful creation of such space for maneuver. Norman Long is a member of the Department of Rural Sociology of the Tropics and Subtropics at Wageningen Agricultural University, P.O. Box 8130, 6700 EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands. He is known for his work in the sociology of rural development. Magdalena Villarreal recently acquired her M.S. in “Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems” at Wageningen Agricultural University. She is presently working on a Ph.D. proposal on issues of power, gender, and intervention.     

Children and Violence: The Role of Children’s Regulation in the Marital Aggression–Child Adjustment Link

Exposure to marital psychological and physical abuse has been established as a risk factor for children’s socio-emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems. Understanding the processes by which children develop symptoms of psychopathology and deficits in cognitive functioning in the context of marital aggression is imperative for developing efficient and effective treatment programs for children and families, and has far-reaching mental health implications. The present paper outlines our research program, Child Regulation and Exposure to Marital Aggression, which focuses on children’s emotional and physiological reactivity and regulation as pathways in the marital aggression–child development link. Findings from our research program, which highlight the importance of children’s regulatory processes for understanding children’s adjustment in contexts of intimate partner violence, are presented, and future directions in this line of inquiry are outlined.     

Learning on Work Placement: The Narrative Development of Social Competence

This paper explores the development of social competence by examining examples of research interviews conducted with 35 British undergraduate students on work placements. Work placement schemes are a characteristic of contemporary higher education, which is particularly geared towards students’ development of employability and transferable skills. Among these skills is that of social competence which is often taken for granted as emerging from normative adult developmental processes. Research on social competence is mostly confined to developmental psychology and focused on studying children and adolescents in their social settings. Moreover, the methodology of social competence is often developed from a child-developmental perspective, neglecting the situation-specific development beyond childhood. The paper argues that social competence is examinable as situated discursive practice and that it is essential to understanding career development. Membership categorisation analysis identifies the participant’s fluid positioning in narrating experiences of work and university. Lastly the paper addresses implications for theories of development and learning and considers ways in which this study can be expanded in the future.

Disciplinary roots and branches of evaluation: Some lessons from agricultural research

Since its origins in North America in the 1960s, the field of program evaluation has grown considerably, and its concerns have broadened from accountability to program improvement, decision support, and institutional learning. Program evaluation is now commonly practiced in governmental organizations not only in North America but also in many countries of Western Europe and Oceania. Although program evaluation is a relatively new field with many controversies and lively debates, a unifying body of evaluation theory, methods, and standards is gradually emerging. Evaluation has recently been described as a “transdiscipline,” as are statistics and measurement. This article is based largely on my personal experiences working in agricultural research organizations in developing regions. Here, a number of different types of evaluation are carried out, but program evaluation as defined by Patton (1997) and as practiced by social scientists to assess public programs is largely unknown. Distinct branches of agricultural research evaluation can be identified, with disciplinary roots in the natural sciences and in agricultural economics. The most rigorous agricultural research evaluations are economic studies. Systematic internal evaluation is notably lacking. Current pressures to improve performance, transparency, and accountability are creating demands for more systematic evaluation, and many program evaluation concepts and methods would seem to be of value in agricultural research organizations. However, in the current scenario of declining funding for agricultural research, managers are yet to be convinced to expand their evaluation activities and explore unfamiliar paradigms and methods. Moreover, they are not yet convinced that social-science-based program evaluation would produce useful results. Natural scientists and economists tend to view program evaluation as “soft-science” or no science at all. Douglas Horton works at the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) in The Netherlands. Since joining ISNAR in early 1990, he has done research, training, and advisory work on agricultural research management, with an emphasis on evaluation. Previously, for fifteen years, Horton was head of the social science department of the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru. With colleagues at CIP and in national agricultural research organizations, he documented patterns and trends in world potato production and use, engaged in participatory technology development and assessed the impact of CIP programs. Horton received B.S. and M.S. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. While at Cornell, Horton worked with W.F. Whyte, pioneer in the fields of participant observation and participatory action research.     

Family Conflict, Emotional Security, and Child Development: Translating Research Findings into a Prevention Program for Community Families

The social problem posed by family conflict to the physical and psychological health and well-being of children, parents, and underlying family relationships is a cause for concern. Inter-parental and parent–child conflict are linked with children’s behavioral, emotional, social, academic, and health problems, with children’s risk particularly elevated in distressed marriages. Supported by the promise of brief psycho-educational programs (e.g., Halford et al. in Journal of Family Psychology 22:497–505, 2008; Sanders in Journal of Family Psychology 22:506–517, 2008), the present paper presents the development and evaluation of a prevention program for community families with children, concerned with family-wide conflict and relationships, and building on Emotional Security Theory (Davies and Cummings in Psychological Bulletin 116:387–411, 1994). This program uniquely focuses on translating research and theory in this area into brief, engaging programs for community families to improve conflict and emotional security for the sake of the children. Evaluation is based on multi-domain and multi-method assessments of family-wide and child outcomes in the context of a randomized control design. A series of studies are briefly described in the programmatic development of a prevention program for conflict and emotional security for community families, culminating in a program for family-wide conflict and emotional security for families with adolescents. With regard to this ongoing program, evidence is presented at the post-test for improvements in family-wide functioning, consideration of the relative benefits for different groups within the community, and preliminary support for the theoretical bases for program outcomes.     

Evaluating research institutions: Lessons from the CGIAR

Investing in research is a long-term, risky proposition. In agriculture, it could take fifteen years or more for a research finding to show an improvement in a farmer’s field. Yet, research institutions, like other organizations it needs to be evaluated. For more than twenty years, independent panels of outside experts have evaluated each of the international research centers that the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) supports. This paper examines the evolution of this review system, outlines the key methodological challenges faced, and draws lessons for others engaged in evaluating research institutions. It notes that the scope of the CGIAR reviews have been broadened over time in response to users’ concerns. Reviews now cover four dimensions of performance: research results, quality and relevance of research, vision and strategic directions, and management efficiency. The methodological challenges faced in measurement, valuation, and attribution are reviewed, along with practices found to be helpful in addressing these concerns. The paper concludes that the panel approach to institutional evaluation has served CGIAR’s needs well, and recommends it as an evaluation technique for integrating quantitative and qualitative dimensions of institutional performance. His recent work has concentrated on the governance and management of the CGIAR and the individual research centers it supports, including questions of evaluating management effectiveness. Prior to joining the World Bank in 1979, he was Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bogazici University (Istanbul) and Senior Research Director of Systems Research Incorporated (Lansing, Michigan).     

Agricultural research networks in sub-Saharan Africa: An analysis of the situation and its consequences

The purpose of this article is to compare the theory and reality of agricultural research networks in sub-Saharan Africa. Networking is a mode of organization that generally suits the new environmental conditions. The analysis of the agricultural research network environment in sub-Saharan Africa shows that when institutional networks started to proliferate, human and institutional conditions were not yet ripe. This explained some of the problems. Nowadays, conditions have improved. Despite all difficulties, networks have contributed to creating a scientific community, have participated in apportioning and even harmonizing research activities, and have made it possible to maintain research activities in countries going through a crisis. Marie de Lattre-Gasquet is a researcher from the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), in France. Within the external relations directorate of CIRAD, she has been responsible for the relationships between CIRAD and international organizations. She has also actively participated in the preparation of CIRAD’s long-term strategy. She worked for the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) in The Netherlands from 1983 to 1985. She holds a Master in International Management (AGSIM, Thunderbird Campus) and a Doctorate in Economy (Université de Paris X). He is mostly working on the agricultural research networks in sub-Saharan Africa. He holds a diploma from the Institut National d’Agronomie—Paris Grignon.     

Evaluation of agricultural research in Latin America and the Caribbean

This article assesses the state of evaluation, and identifies priorities for improving evaluation, in agricultural research organizations in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in the early 1990s. Based on thirteen case studies conducted in 1992, the article describes the institutional settings and regional patterns, and trends in evaluation practice. Illustrative cases from Argentina, Brazil, and Guatemala are presented. The organizations studied have extensive experience with evaluation; however, this experience has not been well documented or shared. Evaluation is generally the weakest phase in the management cycle. In the past, most evaluations have been extrinsically motivated, and as such, they have been of little use to local researchers and managers. Obstacles to improving evaluation include the centralization of administrative systems, weak program management, a lack of understanding of potential uses of evaluation in management, and limited knowledge of appropriate evaluation methods. Agricultural research managers feel that evaluation training should be provided as one component of a broader effort covering planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Since joining ISNAR in 1990, he has engaged in research, training, and advisory work on research management, with an emphasis on evaluation. Previously, for fifteen years Horton was head of the social science department of the International Potato Center in Peru. Horton received B.s. and M.S. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. His current interests include action research and learning, organizational assessment, and institutionalization of planning, monitoring, and evaluation. He worked for fourteen years at the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research, conducting research and development activities in the areas of human resources and of strategic management. He is a full professor at the Department of Social and Work Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Brasilia, Brazil, where he teaches and advises at the undergraduate and graduate levels and does research and consulting. His current areas of interest are organizational behavior, training, organizational evaluation, and science and technology management.     

Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The ‘Fasting Body’ and the Hunger for Pure Immanence

This article will explore the ‘return of the repressed’ of secular materialism, in the form of ‘mutant spiritualities’, with a particular focus on the significance of the fasting body, once an accepted product of ascetic spiritual practice, and now cultivated by those seeking a range of experiences; including the anorexic, the model or celebrity trading in beauty and elegance, and those in search of a new age spiritual enlightenment. I argue that further exploration of the range of contexts in which the fasting body is cultivated reveal that what is desired is a lost experience of the body as an expanded field of energetic confluences, an assemblage of affects in the manner of Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘body without organs’. Such an experience of the body is termed as expanded, light and even ecstatic by those following fasting regimes, in that it overcomes the experience of the body as ‘heavy’, burdensome or limiting. The word ecstasy derives from the Greek ‘ekstasis’, meaning to stand outside oneself. Through a textual analysis of web content of cyber communities dedicated to these food practices, I suggest that fasting expresses a hunger for ‘self transcendence’ as pure immanence, that is both subversive of secular materialism and limited by narcissistic pathology.Jo Nash, PGDip Ed, PhD (Psychotherapy Studies), MA., BA (Hons) has taught on the Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Sheffield since 1998 and became Course Director in October 2001. Before becoming an academic she worked in mental health services for over 15 years as a student nurse, social worker, advocate, trainer and researcher. She is currently working on a series of essays on the application of psychodynamic theory to the study of social processes, in relation to new spiritualities, religion and political processes, and gender and mental health. Correspondence to Dr Jo Nash, Mental Health Section, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield. Regent Court, 30 Regent Place, Sheffield, UK: S1 4DA. J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk She can be contacted by email at J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk     

Social and ethical dimensions of nanoscale science and engineering research

Continuing advances in human ability to manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular levels (i.e. nanoscale science and engineering) offer many previously unimagined possibilities for scientific discovery and technological development. Paralleling these advances in the various science and engineering subdisciplines is the increasing realization that a number of associated social, ethical, environmental, economic and legal dimensions also need to be explored. An important component of such exploration entails the identification and analysis of the ways in which current and prospective researchers in these fields conceptualize these dimensions of their work. Within the context of a National Science Foundation funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in nanomaterials processing and characterization at the University of Central Florida (2002–2004), here I present for discussion (i) details of a “nanotechnology ethics” seminar series developed specifically for students participating in the program, and (ii) an analysis of students’ and participating research faculty’s perspectives concerning social and ethical issues associated with nanotechnology research. I conclude with a brief discussion of implications presented by these issues for general scientific literacy and public science education policy.     

Parents’ Monitoring Knowledge Attenuates the Link Between Antisocial Friends and Adolescent Delinquent Behavior

Developmental trajectories of parents’ knowledge of their adolescents’ whereabouts and activities were tested as moderators of transactional associations between friends’ antisociality and adolescent delinquent behavior. 504 adolescents (50% female) provided annual reports (from ages 12 to 16) of their parents’ knowledge and (from ages 13 to 16) their own delinquent behavior and their friends’ antisociality. Parents also reported the adolescents’ delinquent behavior. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify two sub-groups based on their monitoring knowledge growth trajectories. Adolescents in the sub-group characterized by decreasing levels of parents’ knowledge reported more delinquent behavior and more friend antisociality in early adolescence, and reported greater increases in delinquent behavior and friend antisociality from early to middle adolescence compared to adolescents in the sub-group characterized by increasing levels of parents’ knowledge. Transactional associations consistent with social influence and social selection processes also were suppressed in the increasing knowledge sub-group as compared to the decreasing knowledge sub-group. Findings of this study were presented at the 2005 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.     

Respect and Types of Injustice

Jonathan Wolff and Timothy Hinton have criticized a version of liberal egalitarianism, often associated with Ronald Dworkin, for promoting an account of social justice that fails to treat everyone with respect. This paper analyses Wolff’s and Hinton’s critiques, particularly with regard to how notions of self-respect and respect-standing are deployed. The paper argues that the analyses of both Wolff and Hinton display affinities with a dualist approach to social justice. A dualist approach theorizes respect as an aspect of both distributive, socioeconomic injustice and cultural injustice, rather than of the former only, which is typical of liberal egalitarianism. Nancy Fraser is widely associated with such a dualist framework, so her version is used to assess Wolff’s and Hinton’s work. The paper argues that both make use of ideals and commitments from the dualist approach to justice in their respect objection. However, despite their evident sympathy for the notion of cultural injustice, both continue to theorize respect primarily as an aspect of distributive justice. Thus, for cultural justice theorists, Wolff’s and Hinton’s critiques of Dworkinian justice may leave something to be desired. Thanks to Anne Phillips, Kathy King, Tamara Jugov, Neal Razzell and reviewers for Res Publica for comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Thanks to Itai Rabinowitz for insightful conversations about the issues touched on here. Thanks to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for making this research possible.     

The “New” democratic woman of modernity: Georgia O’Keeffe and Melanie Klein

Summary O’Keeffe put into visual language the psychic splitting that had occurred between the sexes in the United States, attempting to integrate what had formerly been separated as feminine and masculine into the female psyche. In her most important contribution, she explored presence rather than absence and opened up possibilities for thinking about openings. The concept of the female opening in particular had heretofore been assigned a negative meaning, signifying more often than not a gaping wound rather than a space and place of possibilities. Klein’s complex and evocative understanding of some of the earliest mental processes of life enabled researchers to delve into the meanings made of the presence of the mother and father and baby, in the context of the baby’s body-mind. Klein’s female or male baby desires to know from the beginning. She discovered splitting and projective identification, the development of anxiety and guilt under the aegis of these mental processes, the multiple meanings of aggression, and, significantly, she permitted the female baby’s body to have its own language. The answers provided by O’Keeffe and Klein bequeathed new possibilities for women’s self-invention and remain pivot points for female identity throughout the century, to be confronted again by the second wave of feminism beginning in the late 1960s, by ‘postfeminist’ debates, and by a challenged psychoanalysis. A more careful probing of these issues may help us to better understand our past so as to have greater resources for a more comprehensive reading of our present.     

A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic–Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic–political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children’s psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and social learning processes combine to influence the development of social-cognitive structures and processes that affect behavior. Second, we focus on the role of developing self and identity processes in shaping the child’s interactions with the world and the consequences of those interactions. Third, we build on the complex systems perspective on development and assume that human development can only be understood accurately by examining how the multiple contexts affecting children and the adults in their lives interact to moderate biosocial factors which predispose individuals to develop in certain directions. We review the recent empirical literature on children’s exposure to ethnic–political violence and we apply the social-cognitive-ecological framework to the empirical findings in this literature. Finally, we propose future directions for research and clinical implications derived from this framework.     

Social Information Processing,Emotions, and Aggression: Conceptual and Methodological Contributions of the Special Section Articles

This discussion summarizes some of the key conceptual and methodological contributions of the four articles in this special section on social information processing (SIP) and aggression. One major contribution involves the new methodological tools these studies provide for future researchers. Eye-tracking and mood induction techniques will make it possible for SIP researchers to study attentional and emotion-related processes across the six SIP steps. In addition, the STEP-P instrument will open up the study of emotionally-charged aspects of preschoolers’ early SIP. A second contribution is how these articles emphasize the dynamic interplay of emotional and cognitive processes in the emergence of children’s and adolescents’ aggressive tendencies. Finally, implicit developmental themes are raised by several of these studies. Discussion concludes with suggestions for future research, including a focus on the positive (i.e., non-disruptive) role of emotions, and on the connections between moral development and aggression.     

Professionalization and evaluation: The case of Indian agricultural research

This paper examines the role of evaluation in promoting and sustaining professionalism in agricultural research organizations. The evaluation experience of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) reveals a series of attempts to review and institutionalize the essential features of professionalism: expertise, credentialism, and autonomy. The central thesis is that when evaluations inform or enable major changes in one or more of these features of professionalism, over a period of time, it is a sign of increasing professionalization of research. Following a brief introduction, the evaluation experiences of ICAR are examined in the context of the evolution of the profession of agricultural research. Specific evaluation experiences are then analyzed, with an emphasis on the role of evaluation in resolving the tension between bureaucratic and professional decision making. The paper concludes that unless stringent evaluations are introduced in ICAR, the professionalization of agricultural research in India will remain incomplete. Graduated in agricultural sciences at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, she obtained her doctoral degree at the Kerala Agricultural University in 1994. She started her professional career as an agricultural extension officer at the State Department of Agriculture in Kerala. She has published on research organization, measurement of research efforts, history and evolution of agricultural science, priority setting, research decision-making, and reforms in agricultural education and training. Her current research focuses on impact of soil-science technologies, development of key disciplines in agricultural chemistry within an evolutionary economics perspective, and institutional and policy implications of changes in agricultural science.     

Where we stand today in the practice of evaluation: Some reflections

It is a great pleasure and privilege to be here in The Hague this morning to help celebrate what we hope will be a first historic meeting of the European Evaluation Society. It’s a happy day, not only because of the international character of this group and its impressive collective credentials, but also because this conference fits so well into the generally high hopes and expectations that we have for evaluation today. Eleanor Chelimsky is GAO’s Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation. Since 1980, she has directed GAO’s Program Evaluation and Methodology Division. Chelimsky is a member of the advisory boards for the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and for Camegie-Mellon’s John Heinz School of Public Policy. She is also a member of the editonal review board for the Sage Research Series in Evaluation and serves on the editorial boards of two joumals:Policy Studies Review andPolicy Studies Review Annual.