Most Significant Change: A Student-Centered Approach to Assessment

An introduction to the Most Significant Change Technique.

In 1996 Rick Davies began to experiment with a means of monitoring changes in a development aid project in Africa. He wanted the participants that he was working with to focus on outcomes and the impact of those outcomes personally in order to systematically collect and analyze significant change. The Most Significant Change Technique (MSCT) was created and both the thesis and the MSC were informed by an evolutionary epistemology.

Rick’s writings about MSC within the discourse of development studies and organizational learning have been informed by a body of theory known as evolutionary epistemology (Campbell, 1969). Within evolutionary epistemology, evolution is seen as a learning process, and learning by individuals is seen as a subset of this process. Learning is defined as the selective retention of information and information is defined as ‘differences that make a difference’ (after Bateson, 1979).

The core of the evolutionary learning process is what is known as the evolutionary algorithm, which involves the reiteration of variation, selection and retention processes. This can be seen in both organic and cultural evolution. (Davies, 1996)

One of the key processes of this technique is asking questions such as, Looking back over the last month, what do you think was the most significant change in your thinking?”

This is just one type of question that can be asked. But in using this technique, Davies and others have found that this process can provide thick descriptions for analysis as well as a systemic process to select analyses, transparency, a way to verify changes, active participation and a collaboration between story tellers. It is an appreciative inquiry process that allows for full participation from all parties.

MSC is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is participatory because many project stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of changes to be recorded and in analyzing the data collected. It is a form of monitoring because it occurs throughout the program cycle and provides information to help people manage the program. It contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes that can be used to help assess the performance of the program as a whole.

Essentially, the process involves the collection of significant change (SC) stories emanating from the field level, and in our case from the students and the systematic selection of the most significant of these stories. Once changes have been captured, the faculty read the stories and have discussions about the value of these reported changes, and which they think is most significant of all. These ideas are then used to create change in the department and are shared with the students. MSC is most useful:

Where it is not possible to predict in any detail or with any certainty what the outcome will be
Where outcomes will vary widely across beneficiaries
Where there may not yet be agreements between stakeholders on what outcomes are the most important
Where interventions are expected to be highly participatory, including any forms of monitoring and evaluation of the results

The Key questions for us involve the story tellers response to their learning experience. Students tell us that they have been changed by their experience and this is one way to capture that assessment. Sample questions might include

From your point of view, describe the most significant change that has resulted from your involvement?
Why is this significant to you?
What do you think created this change?
What changes were you expecting that did not occur?

Students are asked to complete a MSC response for each of their courses and their capstone that is given to their instructor at the end of each quarter. These responses are added to the narrative evaluation and shared with the core department faculty. Responses are used to make changes in the program.

Resources

Rick Davies’ original 1996 paper providing the first public summary description of the method: An evolutionary approach to facilitating organisational learning:
Rick Davies’ 1998 PhD thesis, describing the method and its use in Bangladesh: Order and Diversity: Representing and Assisting Organisational Learning in Non-Government Aid Organisations.
Rick Davies and Jess Dart’s 2004 The ‘Most Significant Change’ (MSC) Technique: A Guide to Its Use.
The MSC email list, established in 2000 and now having a global membership of more than 1100 people interested in and or using MSC. The email list (hosted by Yahoo) also has a file repository, with 45+ folders of documents dating back to 1993.
The MSC Translations blog: now the central repository for information on translations into other languages, including Spanish, French, Sinhala, Hindi, Bahasa Indonesian, and Bangla so far.
An updated Bibliography on MSC (2006 onwards)
Most Significant Change database (online): “that is now available commercially to help manage MSC stories. It also allows you to do secondary analysis on the stories fairly easily. I have trialled it on a few projects and found it to be really good – especially in supporting the secondary analysis, and managing large numbers of stories” says Fiona Kotvojs, 25/8/2010.

Progressive Teachers Network