aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Who really benefits from a program and how? Using personae to enrich logic models.
Author: Fiona Scott-Melton, Allen + Clarke
Not everyone experiences a program the same way. Yet logic models tend to obscure differences between population groups experiences, needs and aspirations. Incorporating personae helps address this limitation. By representing distinct population groups within a logic model, personae make visible the different routes through which people experience a program and what they gain from it. Drawing on a real life logic model developed for housing disabled people, the session will show how incorporating personae strengthens evaluation design, enriches social return on investment calculations and produces more compelling findings for stakeholders.

Help! The post-it notes have fallen off our logic model and been mixed up!
Author: Robert Grimshaw, ATO
Can you help us piece the logic model back together? This online interactive group activity is one tool used by a large public sector agency to familiarise people with key logic modelling concepts and thinking. This session will provide a practical demonstration of the activity and how it’s being used by workshop participants to apply their learning in a simple and fun way. Participant feedback has confirmed the value of this tool for engaging with and building the capability of a diverse audience who have limited evaluation capability and experience.

Method vs methodology – what’s the difference, and why it matters 
Author: Martina Donkers, Martina Donkers
We’ve got to stop using the words ‘method’ and ‘methodology’ interchangeably. ‘Methodology’ isn’t a slightly-fancier way of saying ‘method’ – it’s actually what conceptually underpins your method choices, and it’s an important thing to reckon with if you want to do evaluation that speaks to your stakeholders, is culturally responsive, is ethical and proportionate, and is ultimately useful. This quick-fire Ignite session will be a rapid deep-dive into practical ways to think about methodology in evaluation, apply it to traditional practice and emerging approaches, and leverage that thinking to do better evaluative work.

Exploring arts-based methods for project evaluation
Authors: Katie Ronson, Creative Australia, Kirstin Clements, Partner Impact & Evaluation
In this presentation evaluation practitioners from Creative Australia and Arts Centre Melbourne share how arts-based evaluation methods can unlock insights about participant experience in contexts where traditional methods struggle.

Evaluating ConnectUp: preferences for a social connectivity app among people with disability and carers
Authors: Feby Savira, Deakin University, Dom Kwasnicka, Deakin University, Lucio Naccarella, Deakin University

A national DCE (n=1,031) was conducted with people with disability, carers, and individuals identifying as both. Participants completed choice tasks comparing hypothetical versions of ConnectUp that varied across cost, communication modes, group structures, anonymity, support features, and information sources. Preferences were analysed using a conditional logit model, with latent class analysis used to identify user segments. Attitudinal questions explored additional features not captured within the DCE.

Three key findings emerge. First, participants were cost sensitive, preferring low- or no-cost options. Second, privacy and control were critical: users preferred small, private group settings and avoided features that compromised anonymity. Third, preferences were heterogeneous. Three segments were identified, including a highly price-sensitive group, a majority group prioritising anonymity and community-generated content, and a smaller segment (18%) more tolerant of cost but still favouring private group structures.

Attitudinal findings highlight additional design considerations. Flexible access features such as membership suspension (73%) and free trial options (77%) were widely valued. Around half of participants prioritised staff training in inclusivity (50%) and access in a preferred language (51%), while over half (54%) preferred human support over automated options.

This presentation demonstrates how combining DCE and attitudinal data can strengthen evaluation of digital services by capturing trade-offs and broader user expectations, and how segmentation can inform more inclusive design decisions. Participants will engage in scenario-based discussion to translate findings into practice.

Thou shall not: The 10 Commandments for Surveys 
Author: Louise Parker, Alinea International
The 10 Commandments for Surveys:
1) Thou shall not ask too many questions - survey fatigue is real and so is wasting people's time. Figure out what you absolutely must know from respondents and craft your questions around that.
2) Thou shall not ask double-barreled questions e.g. 'Did you find the workshop fun and informative?'
3) Thou shall not change the appearance order of repeating yes/no or Likert scale responses - if 'strongly agree' appears on the far right the first time, keep it that way throughout the whole survey.
...plus 7 more fabulous tips!

Author: Doyen Radcliffe, Bajja Yungayimanha Collaboration
Indigenous-led systems change often begins with shifts in cultural authority, relationships, trust and institutional behaviour—long before formal outcomes or policy reform become visible. Yet many evaluation approaches continue to prioritise measurable outputs and short-term results, overlooking the relational, cultural and ethical foundations that drive meaningful change. This creates a gap between what First Nations communities experience as impact and what institutions recognise as evidence.

This presentation introduces the Danjoo Koorliny Five-Dimensional Indigenous Influence Model, developed through the Aboriginal-led impact evaluation of the Danjoo Koorliny movement in Western Australia. The model offers a practical and culturally grounded way to measure systems change by identifying and assessing influence across cultural, relational, behavioural, structural and transformational domains. Central to this work is a decolonising evaluation process that repositions cultural authority, Country and relational accountability as the foundation of ethical and rigorous evaluation. For First Nations evaluation, this means privileging Elder governance, community decision-making, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and culturally grounded methods such as yarning, storywork and outcome harvesting. For evaluation more broadly, it expands how evidence, value and impact are understood in complex systems and supports earlier identification of meaningful change.

The session will highlight three key messages. First, influence is the primary mechanism and measurable pathway of Indigenous-led systems change. Second, decolonising evaluation strengthens methodological rigour by integrating Indigenous and Western approaches rather than positioning them in opposition. Third, valuing place, relationships and cultural integrity improves the relevance, integrity and usefulness of evaluation for communities, policymakers and funders.

The presentation will combine short input, reflective discussion and interactive activities. Participants will explore practical tools, apply the framework to their own contexts, and reflect on how measuring influence can strengthen systems thinking and evaluation practice across diverse sectors.

Why you should leave evaluation (and come back!)
Author: Delyth Lloyd, Australian Centre for Evaluation
After 15 years as an AES member, I stepped away from evaluation for a one-year hiatus. What began as a brief stint in an implementation role quickly transitioned into a fast and furious year using every evaluation skill I had to offer. I negotiated in hard spaces, navigated power dynamics, held space for diversity and ethical complexities. Busy people asked for more rubrics and used them in practice! This presentation distils insights from my transition out of, and back into, the sector. It reflects on the evaluation competencies we hold, and highlights how deeply they are valued by others.

The Evaluation Pub Test: Simple Questions for Public Value 
Author: Amanda Taylor-Short, ARTD
Publicly funded evaluations carry an implicit responsibility to contribute to public good. In practice, evaluations are often viewed as mechanisms for accountability in government decision‑making. This can reinforce a focus on compliance, program‑specific detail, and predefined questions, limiting broader reflection about the contribution of a program and leaving simple but important questions unexplored. This creates a missed opportunity to connect evaluation work with the people and decisions it exists to inform. This presentation explores the Evaluation Pub Test: examining evaluator responsibility to support public value, the benefits of answering simple questions, and considerations for deciding which questions are worth answering.

From scientist to evaluator: Lessons beyond numbers 
Author: Heather Bryan, First Person Consulting
This Ignite traces one evaluator’s unlikely journey from a postgraduate ecologist in Latin America to an honours student modelling climate impacts, and later a data analyst at the Australian Bureau of Statistics - before arriving at the unexpected doorstep of evaluation. Along the way came a new appreciation for the value of qualitative evidence. This talk shares three lessons motivated by moving beyond numbers: outliers are insights rather than errors, stories explain what numbers can’t, and subjectivity, when acknowledged rather than ignored, can strengthen evaluation. Together, these lessons invite a broader view of evidence, where individual stories bring meaning.

Bridging Sectors Through Evaluation: Lessons from a University–Community, Community of Practice
Author: Hannah Morgan, UTS
In 2025, the University of Technology Sydney partnered with Inner Sydney Voice (ISV) to co-design an Evaluation Community of Practice, connecting university evaluators and community practitioners. We reflect on lessons learned from the collaboration, including the value of shared ownership and relational trust in cross-sector work. Community practitioners strengthened their confidence and capability, while UTS deepened its understanding of how to adapt evaluation capacity building to meet the needs of the community sector context. The experience illustrated the mutual benefits of collaboration and the potential of Communities of Practice to advance evaluation through reciprocal learning.

Seeing through their eyes: Photo-Elicitation in Evaluation
Author: Estelle Gaillard, CSIRO
Images can ignite conversation, evoke emotions, elicit reflection and spark new ways of thinking. Photo-elicitation uses photographs in interviews to prompt participants to share insights into their lived experiences that might not surface through standard questions. This Ignite presentation will introduce the method, show practical examples of its use in evaluation and outline the photo-elicitation process. Attendees will leave reflecting on whether — and how — photo-elicitation could fit into their own evaluation toolkit.

Making Space for Boba and Beats: Valuing Grassroots Reality with an Evaluation MVP
Author: Anabelle (pin-chu) Chen, Taiwan Pride
For a volunteer-run grassroots NFP, traditional evaluation often occupies the very space intended for community action. When resources are scarce, every hour spent on data collection undermines the operational realities of the place where we operate. As the President and Evaluator of Taiwan Pride Sydney, I faced this tension at the 2026 Sydney Mardi Gras. How do you measure the cultural impact of a 'Lanterns of Ecstatica, Taiwan Lighting up Asia' float when the generator dies, the music cuts out, and you are forced to march giant illuminated bubble tea cups in total silence?
This Ignite presentation proposes a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for evaluation. By shifting the focus to macro-validation and systemic consequences, I will demonstrate how grassroots organisations can engineer a structurally sound evidentiary argument that survives real-world disaster. Using aggressive dimensionality reduction and cognitive anchoring, we can design evaluation MVPs that extract maximum validated learning with minimum administrative friction. Let's spill the tea on how to make space for rigorous evaluation when absolutely nothing goes to plan.

Author: Carina Calzoni, AES Rob Sale, nous

The AES has been exploring its vision of “quality evaluation that makes a difference” through a strategic project - engaging members and examining evaluation theory and practice. This work has surfaced a central challenge: while the phrase is compelling, its meaning is complex, contested, and shaped by context.

This roundtable begins from that complexity—but does not seek to resolve it. Instead, it focuses on what comes next.
We will briefly share insights from the journey so far, including the multiple dimensions of “evaluation”, “quality”, and “making a difference”. These span tensions between evaluation as process, product, and profession; competing perspectives on quality (e.g. standards, utility, impact, values); and diverse understandings of use and influence across contexts and stakeholders.

The primary purpose of the session is to co-design how this conversation continues across the AES community. Participants will engage in facilitated small-group discussions to explore key questions: What does quality evaluation mean in your context? Who defines it? What does “making a difference” look like—and for whom? How should these conversations evolve as contexts, practice, and membership change?

Participants will then work together to identify practical ways to sustain and deepen engagement, such as ongoing communities of practice, publications, podcasts, or future conference formats. The session will capture and share these ideas to inform AES’s ongoing work.

Designed for intermediate to advanced evaluators, this roundtable creates space for collective reflection and future-oriented dialogue. By centring plurality and participation, it supports the AES vision by keeping the conversation alive—recognising that what constitutes “quality evaluation that makes a difference” must continue to evolve with the field.

Culturally Grounded Evaluation: Innovative Methods from the Champions4Change Workshop
Author: Sunet Jordaan
The Champions4Change program is a First Nations–led initiative supporting people with lived experience of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) to deliver culturally safe education and advocacy in their communities. In 2025, the Heart Foundation delivered a workshop to strengthen Champions’ knowledge, confidence and leadership skills using culturally grounded and accessible evaluation methods.
This presentation shares the evaluation approach used to assess knowledge gained, confidence built and participants’ experiences. Instead of surveys, evaluators used Yarning circles, storytelling and visual self-assessment tools to create a culturally safe environment aligned with community ways of knowing, being and doing. First Nations facilitators with established relationships with Champions led the activities.
Champions used a visual “road journey” to represent changes in confidence and reflected on their understanding of ARF and RHD through yarning conversations and storytelling discussions. The session highlights how culturally grounded, visual and narrative methods can improve accessibility, participation and lived experience leadership while generating richer insights than traditional surveys.

Agile Evaluation Approaches to Combatting Antisemitism in Australia
Authors: Linda Gyorki, Milo McKay
This presentation explores agile evaluation through a real-world evaluation of place-based initiatives aimed at combating antisemitism and strengthening social cohesion. As global political developments, social polarisation and misinformation reshape communities, evaluators working in sensitive environments can no longer rely on fixed designs. This presentation demonstrates how evaluation can adapt without sacrificing rigour or credibility. Three key lessons highlight agile evaluation in practice. First, polarisation affects participation and engagement, making trust-building and relationship management essential evaluation skills. Second, iterative data collection enables evaluators to identify emerging issues, adjust methods and remain responsive to changing community dynamics. Third, responsiveness itself builds credibility. When evaluation processes visibly adapt to local events and stakeholder realities, findings become more useful and trusted by communities.
Aligning with the conference theme, “Making space, valuing place,” the presentation examines how evaluation can remain grounded in community experience while responding to broader global forces. The session will share practical lessons for evaluators navigating sensitivity, external events and methodological adaptation.

Co-design and evaluation as bridges: An adaptive approach to delivering technology for coral reef conservation
Author: Emily Maher
Delivering multilateral conservation projects requires working across disciplinary, cultural and institutional boundaries. In Southeast Asia, coral reef monitoring and management are further challenged by limited resources, capacity and coordination. This presentation shares the adaptive project management and evaluation approaches used by the Australian Institute of Marine Science to support coral reef monitoring through knowledge, technology and expertise exchange. A deliberate “year zero” planning phase aligned expectations, identified local needs and strengthened collaboration. Guided by co-design and adaptive management principles, evaluative processes structured dialogue between scientists, policymakers, managers and practitioners while integrating diverse priorities and cultural considerations. Evaluation functioned as connective infrastructure rather than simply monitoring progress. Regular reflection on partner feedback and evolving implementation needs supported timely adaptation and negotiation of trade-offs. This collaborative approach fostered strong local ownership and sustained government support, contributing to outcomes including a national coral reef monitoring plan in Brunei Darussalam and agreed monitoring standards in the Philippines and Vietnam. The presentation reflects on roadblocks, unexpected outcomes and lessons for complex projects operating across policy, technology, science and implementation.

Effects of community water fluoridation on child dental caries in remote Northern Territory, Australia
Author: Ramakrishna Chondur
Community water fluoridation (CWF) is a cost-effective intervention for reducing dental caries at a population level. This Northern Territory (NT) study used a difference-in-difference (DiD) analysis to examine dental caries outcomes among children exposed to CWF across 50 remote NT communities. Methods: Oral health data from the NT Department of Health (2008–2020) included 24,546 children aged 1–17 years. Drinking water fluoride data from the Power and Water Corporation were linked to the oral health dataset. The DiD analysis compared a treatment group with two control groups to assess the impact of CWF on dental caries outcomes using the decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft/DMFT) index. Results: Dental caries significantly decreased among children in the treatment group following implementation of CWF, with greater reductions than both control groups over the same period.
Conclusion: CWF produced population-level reductions in dental caries among children in remote NT communities, supporting longstanding NT Department of Health policy and demonstrating improved oral health outcomes.

Enshittification: A new category for your next MEL framework?
Author: Duncan Rintoul
The term enshittification (or enpoopification for delicate ears) describes how digital services often begin as useful tools but degrade in quality and usability over time. This decline is commonly linked to increasing prioritisation of profit, resulting in cluttered interfaces, manipulated content, more advertising, rising costs and poorer user experience.
Coined by Canadian writer Cory Doctorow, the term was named “word of the year” by the American Dialect Society in 2023 and Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary in 2024. Drawing on Doctorow’s 2025 book Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It, this Ignite presentation argues that enshittification deserves a place in risk matrices and MEL frameworks across multiple sectors. The presentation also argues for the value of longitudinal process evaluation, not only longitudinal outcome evaluation, to better understand how systems and user experiences deteriorate over time.

From Admin to Evidence: Transforming Data Quality Through Culture and Capability
Author: Cath Cooper
This Ignite presentation will offer practical insights into how redefining purpose, building capability, and embedding supportive systems can transform data from a burden into a meaningful asset for evaluation.
Key points: 1.Cultural Shift: we reframed “admin tasks” as “Evidence of Impact”, shifting the narrative to honour the value of data as a foundation for learning and accountability 2.System Redesign: A collaboratively built CMS, supported by guides, workshops and induction, strengthened capability and consistency. 3.Sustained Improvement: Monthly monitoring, mentoring and rapid feedback loops led to significantly improved data accuracy and reduced correction time, enabling reliable reporting and decision making.