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Hi Kevin Apologies for the delay replying - I've been away / on leave for a little while. To introduce myself - my name's Gill (pronounced Jill) Westhorp. I did my PhD in realist evaluation with Nick Tilley as my supervisor; I've used realist / realist-flavoured evaluation methods since 2002; and I was involved with development of the RAMESES standards. I teach both realist evaluation and realist synthesis in workshop format; am contracted to support/mark post-grad students work for one Australian Uni and am an adjunct Assoc Prof at another to develop staff capacity in RE; I'm developing resource materials for another project, and I regularly participate as the 'realist methodologist' in other people's projects. In response to your questions: I'm happy to provide support / advice - but there's nothing I know of to use for benchmarking (NB - the RAMESES standards are useful for evaluation in so far as the basic realist ideas are the same, but they're of course not directly relevant to evaluation); I don't know of anyone doing exactly what you're doing, but Brad Astbury has certainly supported a number of students to use realist methods; I'm not primarily an academic (I run my own consultancy business), and I have supported many practitioners to use 'realist-flavoured' approaches over the years. I'm involved in one realist action research project at the moment that is supporting community members to participate as co-researchers. So I think it's entirely appropriate to use realist approaches with practitioners / support practitioners to use realist methods, and I don't believe it belongs more in the academic realm. The trick is to keep the language simple while not giving up on the sophistication of the ideas. Happy to chat further if it would be worthwhile for you - [log in to unmask] will find me. Best wishes Gill From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kevin Harris Sent: Thursday, 10 October 2013 7:20 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Looking to benchmark in Realistic Evaluation Hi There, My name is Kevin Harris and I am a Senior Lecturer at Southampton Solent University. I came across the RAMESES website the other day and found the documentation on RS really useful. At SSU I am currently carrying out my PhD within the area of sport for social change (eg how sports based projects can be used to address social interventions). I am using my Coaching Innovation Programme here which involves my students delivering their own projects in communities to address a social issue (for example, empowering young girls to participate in sport / using physical literacy to teach maths and science etc). The key focus of my PhD is to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for the students to implement because at present we have very little understanding of programme learning at all yet we have excellent support and buy in from industry practitioners. Having explored the evaluation lit I have come to the realistic approach which I believe would be most suitable given the nature of the projects my students run. I am currently in the process of developing (what I call a light touch) realistic model underpinned by a training programme which will involve the students doing their own M and E. The model focuses on building programme theories, then testing them through CMOs or hypothesis to then refine and improve. My research will explore the utility of the model and to what extent it is useable for street level practitioners. I suppose the reasons for posing this message are related to the following questions: -Is anyone out there willing to offer me any advice or benchamrk?! For example I am very new to this area and I would love to know whether what I am teaching my students is fit for purpose and to the RE quality standards (although I understand there is no set rules). -Is anyone out there doing anything similar to me? -What are people's views on RE being implemented by street level practitioners (with appropriate training of course)? Can this be done or should it be situated more within the academic realm? I have come across no literature where street level practitioners have done this (although I am not saying I have looked everywhere). Anyway, thanks for your time for reading this and I hope to hear from anyone interested in my work. Kind Regards Kevin Harris Senior Lecturer, Sport Development and Sport Policy Course Leader: BA Hons Sport Coaching and Development Southampton Solent University Faculty of Business, Sport and Enterprise East Park Terrace Southampton SO14 0RH Tel: 023 8031 9520 Follow us on Twitter: @SSUSpCoachDev Check out our blog: www.solentsportsdegrees.blogspot.co.uk Follow our You Tube channel: ssusportdev2012