Research and Evaluation in the Service of Human Rights Education

Felisa Tibbitts, Case Studies in Human Rights Education: Examples from Central and Eastern Europe, Council of Europe/HREA, 1997

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION IN THE SERVICE

OF HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION

I. The Russian Experience

Back in 1990, some Russian researchers and methodologists were already preparing for innovation in teaching and, in particular, teaching human rights. The first agenda was to create teaching materials for schools. The project was conceived to include text development, teacher training, and school-based research.

One psychologist, Yelena Rusakova, who coordinates the Research Program of the Youth Center, was aware of the perils of introducing human rights education into Russian schools. "In the beginning of our work, there were many stereotypes among teachers against teaching human rights." Some teachers did not believe students could understand human rights; in some cases, they even thought that learning about human rights could be harmful because it could result in increased conflicts between children and adults in their community. Moreover, classroom traditions reflected "direct" or "didactic" teaching, whereby Russian teachers saw their role as imparting the correct knowledge to students. Classrooms tended to be teacher-centered, and educational programs rarely employed activity-based methods, such as discussions and role plays.

In order for the innovative human rights education project to have the best chance of survival, a research program was organized in the pilot schools. At first, this research consisted of classroom observations of those lessons involving teaching techniques considered to be most unfamiliar to teachers -- role plays. The investigators, who included psychologists and some trained volunteers, hoped that their observations would enable them to revise role game scripts. They also took the opportunity to learn more about student concept formation and affect in such learning situations.

Yelena reports that in the beginning of the project, the new lessons had been more formalistic. "Scripts for role plays had been based on the idea that children were ready to discuss human rights ideas and that it was useful and clear to them." But this was not the case. For example, on the topic of freedom of movement, a link was made between this right and the right to move to another country. In the first role game designed to illustrate this principle, students were divided into two groups; one was supposed to be from a democratic country, the other from a non-democratic country. The students' task was to move from the non-democratic country to the other, collecting all the appropriate documentation, and so forth. Observations revealed that the students were quite actively and emotionally engaged in the role play; however, some teachers found the lesson "unpatriotic." As a consequence, the role play script was revised to include additional explanation about freedom of movement.

Another of the interesting fruits was insight into the the value of rules and laws in the classroom. In the early 1990s, Russian students observed in role plays had difficulty observing the rules of the game. They did not consider a breach of a role play rule as serious, an orientation to laws which the researchers extrapolated for adults in Russian society in general. Yelena believes that in Russian society, power has traditionally been held higher than the law. However, she remarks that this situation is slowly changing.

Between 1990 and 1995, the Russian research project expanded to include not only classroom observations, but also questionnaires designed to probe teachers= conceptions of their style of teaching, orientation towards the law, and their anticipated reactions to problem situations in the classroom. This has given the program coordinators deeper insight into the mentality of Russian teachers, and both challenges and opportunities for change in terms of introducing activity-based human rights-oriented curricula into the classroom.

Applied research and evaluation can augment every educational program, and particularly ones that are innovative in content and/or instructional methodology. In the Russian project just described, the original classroom observations were conducted in order to see first hand how students and teachers responded to role play lessons and human rights principles; the observations also led to deeper research about student and teacher orientation to laws and rules through expanded observation and questionnaire use. This project therefore combined both a formative evaluative component that was used to improve the teaching materials of the project, as well as a pure research component concerning legal consciousness in Russian classrooms.

Other human rights education projects in the region have also incorporated research and evaluation components. In Romania, the Institute of Educational Sciences in conjunction with the Netherlands Helsinki Committee, conducted an extensive field study concerning the use of a draft innovative civics text based on human rights principles. The experiences of four Romanian teachers who field tested the text over the course of an entire year were documented in a variety of ways. For the purposes of formative evaluation and improving the draft text, teachers were asked to report weekly on their use of the text and areas for possible improvement. Areas of reporting included the teacher's selection of lesson, methodology employed, required preparation time, supplemental resources used, modifications to the lesson, age appropriateness of the content and language, student interest, difficulties encountered, production quality of the texts, and suggested areas for improvement.

This weekly self-reporting was complemented by periodic classroom observations by the curriculum developer and a trainer/researcher, interviews with the teachers, and focus group interviews with the students. Numerous, useful suggestions were made concerning the elimination of text, the clarification of concepts, and the addition of materials that were particularly attractive to students.

The less applied research associated with the field testing sought to understand the teachers' perspectives on teaching civics and human rights education, and their personal experiences in trying more activity-based methods over the course of the year. Teacher change, including the support systems that appeared to be most successful, have helped inform the methodological guide that accompanies the student texts, as well as accompanying teacher trainings.

II. Evaluation Approaches

There are several areas of potential evaluation that lend themselves naturally to innovative human rights education programs. The first is the field testing of materials; the second is evaluation of in-service training programs; and the third is program evaluation.

Field testing of materials can be accomplished with a minimum of effort, but great coordination is required. Resource developers might ask a small number of schools or teachers to try out a text for a certain period of time; this can vary from one month to several years. These teachers would then be asked to "report back" to the developers, through written response to questions compiled by the developers, open-ended reporting organized around several criteria, or in-person interviews or focus group meetings.

In Albania, field testing is making use of both weekly fisches, and an end-of-the-year report. The weekly fiches include six questions concerning the teachers= use of the draft text, the success of the lesson, and suggested modifications.

1. Was the activity used as it was presented in the text? Was it modified in any way? If so, how?

2. Was the lesson completed?

3. Was the lesson successful? Comment.

4. Suggestions for changes.

5. Is the activity realistic for the classroom?

6. Special events that took place in the classroom.

At the end of the year, the pilot school teachers will fill out an overall evaluation that concerns language and concept clarity, the age appropriateness of the content, production quality, use of the materials in the overall school curriculum, teacher preparation time required, and other information needed by the teacher.

Ideally, developers would also visit classrooms to see the curriculum >in action= and to speak directly with teachers and students about their experiences, garnering suggestions for improvement. Field testing is perhaps essential in the case of human rights education, when both topics and instructional methodologies are new, and when a high degree of cultural sensitivity is required.

Evaluation of in-service training programs is now standard in most places. Typically, this is done through a written evaluation form that is distributed either daily or only at the end of a training. Organizers usually include a combination of closed-ended and open-ended questions that ask participants to indicate their overall degree of satisfaction about the training and its utility for their classroom teaching. It may also be desirable to include a question concerning the participants= intended follow-up activities for infusing human rights education into their classroom, and to follow-up with participants within a four to six month period. This follow-up can serve not only as a final

--Sample In-Service Evaluation Form--

Section 1. Operational Aspects of the Training

Participants rate "degree of satisfaction" with meeting room, hotel, food, transportation.

Section 2. Experiences within the Training

Participants rate "degree of usefulness" of the overall training (or specific trainers, days) for

(a) learning about key human rights documents, principles and mechanisms for protection

(b) becoming familiar with activity-based methodology

Open-ended questions might also be added about the most valuable aspects of the training, the least useful, and general comments.

Section 3. Follow-Up to the Training

An open-ended question about how the teacher expects to do human rights education in the classroom/school/community in the future.

Finally, another pertinent form of evaluation in a human rights education project might be a program evaluation. Such evaluations may be either formative or summative in nature. A formative program evaluation will collect data mid-point in order to provide information that will enable the organizers to "reform" or "redirect" their program mid-course so that it is more effective. A summative evaluation will attempt to document the degree to which the program -- now in its final phase -- successfully reached the goals it had set out to achieve. Both forms of program evaluation benefit from both an independent (but compassionate) evaluator and the active participation in documentation of those most deeply involved in conducting the project.

Data collection methods can include both quantitative and qualitative elements: quantitative, for example, insofar as "measurable products" such as numbers of textbooks produced, teachers trained, requests for materials, etc. are well documented. Qualitative, for example, in terms of project staff's personal professional development (capacity building), networking relationships established, program innovation or informal/formal influence on the educational system.

Regardless of whether trainer psychologists or trained independent evaluators are formally involved in human rights education programs, it behooves directors and their staff to provide opportunities for themselves to look critically at their own work, to reflect and to improve their activities. Although informal mechanisms are often employed, project staff might also want to consider more formal means that will allow for open and early airing of potential problems and room for improvement.

Felisa Tibbitts
November 1995

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