Because of the importance of measuring impact, evaluators and education planners have to resort to baseline studies. These are studies which, using a range of methods to establish a starting point for the programme, make it possible to see if anything has changed as a result of the programme.
This section suggests ways of obtaining baseline information, and how to manage if this is not possible.
This base or starting point is best established before a programme is implemented, and certainly before an evaluation is undertaken. It may be possible to recall how things were, but memory is closely bound with present perceptions and future aspirations.
With luck, it might be discovered that a study done by someone else is contemporaneous with the programme starting point. But, leaving it to chance or memory is not the best policy.
Difficulties of Measuring the Base
Studies operate on the assumption that they can determine what information is relevant and what is likely to change as a result of the programme, and on the assumption that information can be collected and analysed with sufficient speed, and that it will not change before the programme is implemented.
These are major assumptions. When the information is gross, it may be possible to do. A school building programme can count the number of schools in existence, implement the programme, and count again. A voter education programme being conducted in a society where people have not voted before can be fairly confident about that fact and can measure voting performance during the first election.
When there are a large number of factors affecting baseline information, establishing the baseline is much more difficult and requires considerable research and analytical skills.
Nevertheless, developing even a ragged baseline as a working model is preferable to having no idea where the programme is starting and how to tell whether it has made any impact at all.
Gathering Baseline Information
There are two ways in which baseline information can be obtained on a regular basis. When neither of these ways is available, educators have to weigh the need for a baseline study when they conduct their first programme.
It may be more cost effective to go into the field without a full understanding of the context and without the ability to evaluate impact fully so that a second cycle can use the data obtained in the first.
Periodic Elections
When elections are happening regularly, and where voter and civic education programmes have been institutionalised, it is possible to look back on an annual or periodic basis. This becomes the baseline information for each successive programme, and as the amount of information accumulates, it is possible to identify trends, to compare results of programmes, and to transfer lessons learned in one programme to another.
This can be done only if there is good record keeping from one election to another and if there is continuity in the organisation (whether the electoral management authority or a nongovernmental organisation) conducting the educational programme.
Context Assessment Data
While an educational programme can be developed without undertaking a context analysis, this will surely mean it is limited in scope or less effective in outcome. Conducting a context assessment ensures that a great deal of the information considered necessary for a baseline study is in place.
The programme will have at its disposal basic information about voters or citizens, survey or anecdotal information about their educational needs, and certain basic geopolitical information that, while primarily intended to facilitate the programme, can also be used by evaluators.
Indeed, the relationship between evaluation and context assessment is a symbiotic one. The ultimate goal of a major educational programme is the cyclical continuity that enables much of the setup work to become regular.
In this way, there is the possibility of constant programme improvement, as well as a research cycle that maintains certain basic information about programme participants or target constituencies.
Unfortunately, many national education programmes do not repeat themselves at intervals regular enough to achieve this. In countries that do not institutionalise civic and voter education, large-scale programmes must constantly redo work and pay for it on each occasion.
If No Baseline Can be Established
It may not be possible to establish a reliable base. Evaluation can still happen, and even impact studies can happen.
An evaluation can be designed with a series of cycles so that the same area or question is revisited at periods during a programme. Or, evaluators can draw comparisons between similar areas, one that has experienced the programme and one that has not.
There are a number of social study techniques that may work, and most evaluations operate in this way. However, those who want to study the impact of an education programme over time should work at establishing a significant baseline.
