Qualitative Tools

This section of the inventory provides qualitative tools such as various arts-based methods and sample interview guides that can be used to conduct interviews or focus groups.

Card Sort
How-To Guide
The Card Sort is a fun and interactive tool that helps youth self-report achievements that they could be expected to show from participation in your program. The tool requires a pack of statement cards, markers, and baskets. It is recommended that the tool be administered towards the end of the program as it is designed to measure program outcomes.

Colour by Question
How-To Guide
This customizable arts-based activity can be used to explore youth’s thoughts, experiences, and perceptions through ‘yes/no’ colour-by-question colouring sheets. This evaluation activity may be ideal for youth who do not speak English as their first language, or who live with developmental and/or learning disabilities.

Digital Storytelling
How-To Guide
Digital storytelling projects allow youth to create personal narratives about their experiences and express them through the medium of a short video. This tool can be used as a reflective activity to dive deeper into young people’s understandings of a subject or a program and its impact, and to use their creativity to expand and strengthen their learnings.

Graffiti Wall
How-To Guide
While quantitative tools are great for determining hard numbers, they often restrict the ability of youth participants to share their opinions in their own words. The Graffiti Wall is a great tool that uses written and visual feedback to help capture how young people feel about programming. 

Group Artwork developed by My Peer Toolkit
How-To Guide
This engaging evaluation tool will appeal to young people who would appreciate an opportunity to share their thoughts via visuals. Group artwork promotes teamwork and encourages participants to explore their creative abilities as a group. The resulting outputs can be used for promotional purposes and as a long-term reminder of a shared positive experience.

Head, Heart, Feet
How-To Guide w/ Template
This fun, quick, and simple tool asks youth to talk about what they have learned (head), how they feel about what they have learned (heart), and what they'll do as a result of their participation in the program (feet). One benefit of using the tools over a number of sessions is that as youth become more familiar with Head, Heart, Feet, their ability to engage and communicate their thoughts using the tool may improve over time.

Hocus Focus
How-To Guide
This tool helps children/young people discuss and evaluate the activities of a program/service and make constructive suggestions for improvement.

Me as a Tree Activity 
How-To Guide
This activity helps young people begin to consider, talk, and learn about themselves and/or each other. The Me as a Tree activity is ideal to use to build group cohesion and facilitate a group discussion.

Mind Maps
How-To Guide
In a Personal Meaning Map, youth candidly draw or write connections they have to ideas and/or concepts. This tool can be used to interpret youth’s understanding and attitudes toward a variety of concepts and ideas.

Photovoice
How-To Guide
Photovoice is an incredibly powerful way for youth to share their perspective and voice using digital photography as a means of storytelling. It can be used to capture program experiences, promote youth voice, and highlight favourite aspects of youth programming.

Rose, Thorn, Bud
How-To Guide
This activity can be used as an icebreaker to foster relationships or as an activity debrief to understand what's working, what's not, and areas for improvement. Specifically, this tool can be used by program staff to facilitate reflection on material learned in an event, class or training through debriefing, processing, and drawing out meaning to apply learning down the road.

Ship, Shore, Anchor
How-To Guide
This active and engaging game works to explore youth’s thoughts, emotions, and perspectives through the various modifications of the popular physical activity, Ship to Shore. This evaluation tool could be ideal for programs that are delivered using kinesthetic learning (which prioritizes engaging in physical activity rather than listening or watching) or that are designed for youth living with developmental and/or learning disabilities.

World Café
How-To Guide
This tool can be used when hosting large groups to foster conversation, story sharing, problem-solving, and planning. It is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions that matter in service to real work.

Youth Adult Engagement Readiness Assessment 
How-To Guide
This qualitative tool can be used to help organizational stakeholders to: 1) brainstorm about their rationale for wanting to engage young people in their programming and 2) reflect on how their organization is set up and how work is done, so improvements can be prioritized.

Interview Guides

These interview guides include questions related to both process and outcome evaluations, and can be used with youth, program staff, volunteers, mentors or any other stakeholder involved in the program. Additionally, these documents can be used as a starting point for you to select questions that best fit with your program evaluation and expand your interview from this bank. Such questions can be used to facilitate both focus groups and interview guides.

Youth
Guide and Template #1
Guide and Template #2
Guide and Template #3

Staff
Guide and Template

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