Original scientific paper
Researching the effects of changes occurring with youth in the context of non-formal education
Marin Spetič
orcid.org/0000-0002-9329-3484
; Split, Croatia
Abstract
Croatian civil society has for many years, slowly but surely, advanced in its vision and purpose. Due to the Croatian accession to the European Union, the civil society has acquired new possibilities for funding and implementation of a wide range of projects. In addition to these, the increasing importance of recognizing the skills and knowledge gained informally (Crnčić Sokol and Kostanjčar Suljada, 2009, 95), opened the way for the application of sociological perspectives, theories and methodology to a new research area; the validation and evaluation of the skills and knowledge gained through non-formal and informal education. This paper, therefore, focuses on the implications of the development of non-formal education projects within civil society. The paper firstly addresses the problems with formal recognition of the skills and knowledge acquired through alternative channels of education. The focus of the work is the methodological problem of measuring the impact of non-formal education projects and programs on the participants/users. Using quantitative methodology (and structured questionnaire as a measuring instrument), the research was designed as a quasi experimental study. Action-evaluation design represented the main research strategy with the idea of assessing and clearly evaluating changes that the BeAlive 2014 project participants experienced, in relation to the specific project objectives and goals. This resulted in opening a methodological discussion on the ways to evaluate, validate and measure the changes and effects of non-formal education projects.
Keywords
civil society; evaluation; projects; validation
Hrčak ID:
178175
URI
Publication date:
16.12.2016.
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