How to use Visual Evaluation Methods: First-person video, photo-elicitation interviews and annotated drawings
How can visual methods offer new insights about audience experience and impacts?
Dana Research Centre and Library, 165 Queen's Gate, Kensington, London SW7 5HD
There is growing interest in creative methods of evaluation. The trick is to ensure that such creative approaches are also robust. This workshop offers step-by- step guidance on how you can achieve this balance of creative and quality when using visual evaluation methods. The workshop introduces essential options in the visual evaluation methods toolkit, including:
- First-person video
- Photo-elicitation interviews
- Annotated drawings
While these methods are relatively new to the context of evaluating public engagement, widening participation and informal learning activities, they hold great potential for accessing aspects of audience experience and impacts that are difficult to express. For example, visual methods can be particularly effective at identifying the process that audiences go through when responding to an activity and their emotional responses to experiences. The workshop will take you on a tour through these innovative evaluation methods, identifying why they are so useful and how to use them effectively.
Eric Jensen
Dr. Eric Jensen is an internationally-recognised social scientist specializing in innovative methods of conducting impact evaluation research in informal learning and public engagement contexts.
Jensen is author of Doing Real Research: A Practical Guide to Social Research (SAGE). He has extensive experience in evaluation of impact and quality of experience. He has advised leading cultural institutions and universities including the University of Cambridge, National Gallery, London Zoo, Natural History Museum, Imperial War Museum, Cheltenham Literature Festival, the British Museum, University of Cambridge Museums, Oxford University Museums, Exploratorium, San Diego Zoo and Bronx Zoo. Dr. Jensen holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge (UK). |
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Brady Wagoner Professor
Professor Brady Wagoner (University of Aalborg) is a world-leading expert in idiographic methodology and memory. He is Director of the Cultural Psychology MA programme at Aalborg University. He did his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he developed innovative new methods to study cultural and constructive processes.
In particular, he has done work on conversational remembering, impact evaluation in zoos and art museums, therapeutic encounters, among others. Additionally, he has devised research strategies that synthesise qualitative and quantity methods by using the latter to situate and contextualise cases analysed qualitatively.
Sarah Awad PhD Fellow
Sarah H. Awad is a Ph.D. fellow at the Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark. She received her M.Sc. in social and cultural psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science and her B.A. in mass communication from the American University in Cairo. She has worked in fields directly relating to using communication for behavioural impact and creating communication strategies advocating causes such as child rights and education with different social development agencies.
Her research interests are in the interrelation between the fields of cultural psychology, communication, and social development. She has published work exploring the process by which individuals develop through times of life ruptures and social change using art and storytelling. She has a special interest in visual methodology and the analysis of urban images and their influence on identity, collective memory and politics within a society.
Participation notes
14:00 to 17:00 (arrivals from 13:50) NOTE: For detailed guidance about the full range of evaluation methods, please consider the online course: Public Engagement Evaluation.
Dana Research Centre and Library, 165 Queen's Gate, Kensington, London SW7 5HD, United Kingdom

Dr. Eric Jensen is an internationally-recognised social scientist specializing in innovative methods of conducting impact evaluation research in informal learning and public engagement contexts.

Professor Brady Wagoner (University of Aalborg) is a world-leading expert in idiographic methodology and memory. He is Director of the Cultural Psychology MA programme at Aalborg University. He did his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he developed innovative new methods to study cultural and constructive processes.

Sarah H. Awad is a Ph.D. fellow at the Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark. She received her M.Sc. in social and cultural psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science and her B.A. in mass communication from the American University in Cairo. She has worked in fields directly relating to using communication for behavioural impact and creating communication strategies advocating causes such as child rights and education with different social development agencies.