Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to present and suggest the Most Significant Change as an
effective evaluation methodology of Theatre in Education (TiE) programmes. It is a
given that TiE, as other forms of performative and participatory educational projects,
is hard to be assessed and evaluated. It becomes harder due to the lack of adequate
research in the field and thus the lack of initiatives, data and experience. This paper
presents the “Most Significant Change” (Davies & Dart, 2005) evaluation method as
adjusted by the researchers, which was implemented after the TiE programme “Ston
Kosmo tou” (In his world) funded by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation. This is
the first presentation and analysis of a wider study that took place during the school
year 2017-2018, where 38 schools, 2185 students and 58 teachers were researched
after the application of the programme. This paper argues that narratives and stories
may well serve as an internal process of evaluation of TiE and other educational
participatory programmes. It attempts to suggest specific steps of using a well-known
evaluation tool and launch a new approach on the evaluation and assessment of such educational interventions.