Research

How Theories of systemic change relate to evaluation and the role of evaluator's in systemic reform*

By Mukaria J. Itang'ata
Western Michigan University

* This essay was written to compete for the American Evaluation Association's Graduate Students' Travel Fund for 2002. The essay won the AEA Graduate Travel Award and was presented at the AEA International Conference held in Washington, DC in November 2002. The author is a Research Associate at the MERC-GEAR UP project and a PhD student in Evaluation, Measurement and Research.

The theories of systemic change views the world as a universe comprising of a hierarchy of systems that are systemically interlinked and well-structured via sub-systems. That systemic change occurs in the universe when

People as agents of the systems change, become systems thinkers and adopt a systemic point of view
People shift their thinking, life styles, and organizational behaviors to invest in systemic principles and values. Systemic change theorists argue that systemic change can be measured and evaluated in terms of the shifts in peoples' values, assumptions, awareness and behavior change patterns.

The theories of systemic change relate to evaluation when the evaluation approach is used as an interventional measure designed to cause or influence a systemic change in the system(s). This occurs when an evaluation measure or activity is put in place thus linking the interests of the client and the evaluator via the evaluation intervention. In this way, the client system, the evaluator system and the evaluation system become incorporated into the systemic change-working framework with the evaluation system becoming the linking bridge between the client and evaluator systems. If something is made to happen in the evaluation system, it affects the client and the evaluator systems and vice versa. The evaluation as an intervention measure in the client system brings forth the reactions of the client system while respecting the autonomy of the former based on the agreed working and intervention norms. This is how the theories of evaluation are related to evaluation.

The theories of systemic change relate to the evaluator's role in systemic reform in the following ways:

One, the theories help in the simplification of the systems and sub-systems description thus enhancing the understanding of how the systems and sub-systems are interrelated to one another. This enable evaluators to assess and document the needs of a program, system or policy being evaluated in a well-structured and clear way, hence helping the evaluator to play an important role in enabling and influencing systemic reforms in a system or systems.
Two, the theories of systemic change help the evaluator to understand the interrelationships, complexities and dimensions of the program, system or policy evaluation design and theory, thus, enabling the evaluator to collect the right data for the evaluation and consequently, evaluating the right quality and impact of the program, system or policy in question. In this manner, the theories of systemic change help an evaluator to play an important role in understanding the systems program designs and theories and making sure that the right evaluations are undertaken in order to have meaningful systemic reforms.
Three, the theories provide the evaluator with the opportunities of knowing on time the diverse nature of the stakeholders information needs for the evaluation. Given that the stakeholders in a system(s) are likely to have differing needs, the evaluator also have to collect different sets or forms of information as per the needs of the stakeholders. In this way, the theories of systemic change enables the evaluator to play an important role in collecting the right data for different stakeholders in the systems thus having the right stakeholders information for designing better systemic reforms.
Four, given that the systemic theories are more able to provide the hierarchical structure of systems in a clear and systematic manner, it affords the evaluators the opportunity to understand the systems arrangements in their order of importance. Such arrangements further help the evaluators to know who gets what information and when during and after the evaluation and in this way, the right information goes to the right people in the systems who are important in aiding the systemic reform efforts.
Five, given that the theories of systemic change present the systems universe in a well defined hierarchical structure, the evaluators are quickly enabled to study and understand the systems faster and determine what evaluation tools, instruments and strategies to use for the evaluation. With that happening, the evaluators role of recommending or adopting the evaluation tools and instruments that are most appropriate for collecting and analyzing the data for the evaluation, and adopting or recommending the best strategies for yielding the best evaluation results are realized thus achieving the goal of attaining reasonable systemic reforms.
Six, an excellent evaluation is one that has clear, well-defined and established standards on how the evaluation decisions were made. The theories of systemic change, by providing their systems universe with well defined and structured systems design, they ease the evaluators burden of conducting systems needs assessment, constructing and developing the systems program theory, logic model and determining the criteria of merit on which the evaluation standards would be based. In such aspects, the theories of systemic change relate to evaluation and help in advancing the role of evaluators in developing and determining evaluation standards for better systemic reforms.
Seven, the theories of systemic change by virtual of their clear and linearly hierarchical structures, they give the evaluators the opportunities of easily detecting which evaluation and intervention strategies are working and which are not, thus giving evaluators the power to control and/or change the evaluation and intervention strategies that are not working to the evaluators satisfaction. With the theories then aiding the easiness of understanding the systems structures, the evaluators role of controlling and/or changing the evaluation/intervention failing strategies are boosted, and finally systemic reforms are realized.
Eight, the theories of systemic change assumes that the best results in systemic reforms are achieved when all the components within systems are well aligned and coordinated. This assumption well places the evaluators in an important and critical role of both assessing and verifying which components of the systems modus operandi are illogic and theoretically irrelevant, and eventually help in the improvement of the systems logic and theory for needs of achieving timely systemic reforms.

This essay concludes that the theories of systemic change are related to evaluation and that the theories are important to the field of evaluation for enabling the evaluators to understand their role in incorporating better program theories and logic models for undertaking systemic evaluations and reforms that meet the systems needs in timely and cost effective manners.