Building Evaluation Capacity Among Native American Indians, Influence by Design: 

Culture Based ABC’s of Evaluation to Impact Public Policies

Marie Stiechen and Steve Benton, co-PI’s,  Kansas State University

The Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation (OEIE) at Kansas State University partnered with    the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center to design evaluation plans for several grant proposals dealing with Native American and Indigenous Siberian communities. Experience with the limitations of Western evaluation models for working with in this context together with the forces pushing toward a   more inclusive national social conscience and a national focus on improving understanding of multicultural perspectives highlights the discrepancy between availability of Western evaluation methods, tools and protocols and the lack of culture-based Native American evaluation methods, tools and protocols. This is true for evaluating Native American programs, as well as for conducting evaluative research with indigenous populations and for teaching evaluation consistent with Native American world views and that meet Native American needs and interests such as impacting public policy decisions.

     By the end of the Planning Grant, our Project Team will have five deliverables: 

     1) a refined culturally based Indigenous Evaluation approach, Influence by Design, for evaluating     environmental justice (EJ) issues on or near tribal lands;                                    

     2) “best fit” delivery approaches for building evaluation capacity among Native American professionals and students; 

     3) a conference planned for collaborating with tribal officials and Native American professionals  on course content and methods;  

     4) a case study prototype for teaching evaluation using a problem-based learning approach; and 

     5) a symbol (Medicine Wheel) applied for delivering evaluation content in a culturally compatible manner.