I:DNA – Evaluating the impact of public engagement with a multimedia art installation on genetic screening

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Abstract

Art is increasingly being used by researchers as a medium to engage the public, yet evaluating and capturing impact remains challenging. We report an evaluation of a four-year public engagement project, I:DNA, designed to engage the public with research that explores the views and experiences of people with genetic conditions. An immersive art installation was exhibited at six scientific/cultural venues (2019–22), alongside several supplementary engagement activities, including talks, a game, ‘invisible theatre’, poetry workshops/performance and children’s art workshops. I:DNA reached over 26,500 people (online and in-person), and 268 people left some form of evaluation via postcards, online forms or emails. Through thematic analysis of this evaluation data, as well as the artistic outputs of supplementary activities, evidence of impact was identified in three key areas: changing views, inspiring behaviour change and supporting capacity for future public engagement. Implementation and evaluation of I:DNA highlights the challenges of evaluating the impact of complex arts-based public engagement projects, and the urgent need for methodological development to evaluate the processes by which impact occurs (not just the consequences of that impact), and the significance of venue and context, as well as the short-, medium- and long-term impacts of arts-based public engagement for both public and stakeholder groups.

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Using thematic analysis in psychology

Virginia Braun, Victoria Clarke (2015)

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The Production and Dissemination of Knowledge: A Scoping Review of Arts-Based Health Research

Katherine Boydell, Brenda Gladstone, Tiziana Volpe … (2012)

The use of arts-based research is shifting our understanding of what counts as evidence and highlights the complexity and multidimensionality involved in creating new knowledge. A scoping review of arts-based health research was undertaken to identify the breadth of peer-reviewed literature, summarize findings and identify gaps. A literature database search identified 71 original studies meeting our criteria for review. Studies were characterized by diverse art genres, designs, and substantive health topics. The arts in qualitative research were considered an opportunity for enhanced engagement of participants and audiences alike, a way to enrich communication and make research accessible beyond academia, and a method for generating data beyond the scope of most interview-based methods. Three central gaps were identified: the need for critical dialogue regarding the impact of arts-based health research, the need to focus on how the quality of such projects is judged, and the need to address the ethical challenges of engaging in this work. We suggest that the broadening of qualitative methodologies to include arts-based approaches offers more than simply adjuncts to typical data collection and dissemination approaches, and instead, presents different ways of knowing. We believe that this may be a significant moment in the field in which to question whether or not we are witness to a paradigmatic shift in the ways we approach inquiry into the social world and/or the emergence of an innovative set of techniques that researchers can draw upon to enhance traditional methods of conducting qualitative inquiry. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201327 Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol 13, No 1 (2012): Participatory Qualitative Research

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A common standard for the evaluation of public engagement with research

Mark S. Reed, Sophie Duncan, Paul Manners … (2018)

Despite growing interest in public engagement with research, there are many challenges to evaluating engagement. Evaluation findings are rarely shared or lead to demonstrable improvements in engagement practice. This has led to calls for a common 'evaluation standard' to provide tools and guidance for evaluating public engagement and driving good practice. This paper proposes just such a standard. A conceptual framework summarizes the three main ways in which evaluation can provide judgements about, and enhance the effectiveness of, public engagement with research. A methodological framework is then proposed to operationalize the conceptual framework. The standard is developed via a literature review, semi-structured interviews at Queen Mary University of London and an online survey. It is tested and refined in situ in a large public engagement event and applied post hoc to a range of public engagement impact case studies from the Research Excellence Framework. The goal is to standardize good practice in the evaluation of public engagement, rather than to use standard evaluation methods and indicators, given concerns from interviewees and the literature about the validity of using standard methods or indicators to cover such a wide range of engagement methods, designs, purposes and contexts. Adoption of the proposed standard by funders of public engagement activities could promote more widespread, high-quality evaluation, and facilitate longitudinal studies to draw our lessons for the funding and practice of public engagement across the higher education sector.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (publisher-id): rfa

Title: Research for All

Publisher: UCL Press (UK )

ISSN (Electronic): 2399-8121

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 13 October 2023

Volume: 7

Issue: 1

Electronic Location Identifier: 15

Affiliations

[1 ]Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Author notes

*Correspondence: felicity.boardman@ 123456warwick.ac.uk

Author information

Felicity K. Boardman https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3268-6276

Corinna C. Clark https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1077-9383

Gillian Lewando Hundt https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7894-3461

Article

DOI: 10.14324/RFA.07.1.15

SO-VID: dc25a932-e94b-43f8-85b5-ecf70fbd3d8e

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

History

Date received : 08 July 2022

Date accepted : 02 June 2023

Page count

Figures: 3, Tables: 1, References: 47, Pages: 21

Funding

Funded by: Wellcome Trust Research Enrichment – Public Engagement grant

Award ID: 203384/Z/16/A

I:DNA was funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of their funding for Professor Boardman’s Imagining Futures Research Programme. Wellcome Trust Research Enrichment – Public Engagement grant (grant ref: 203384/Z/16/A).