Evaluating Understanding: Endogenous Project Evaluation Using Practice-Based Interaction Analysis (PIA)

Abstract

Carlin and Murdoch argue that when a programme involves talk, then talk should form the locus of evaluation. This offers an alternative to current evaluation methods applied to talking therapy programmes. Drawing upon ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, Carlin and Murdoch demonstrate practice-based interaction analysis (or PIA) for evaluating talking therapy programmes. The turn-taking organisation of talk provides criteria that are already being used by participants within their talk, which can be utilised as bases for evaluation. Excerpts from programme data highlight how ‘claims to’ and ‘displays of’ understanding demonstrate truly endogenous evaluations. Carlin and Murdoch argue that adjacently paired turns at talk demonstrate how participants themselves evaluate in situ understandings, thus developing evaluation criteria derived from participants’ activities rather than exogenous evaluation criteria.

Appendix: Key to Transcripts

Line numbers	These are for the convenience of readers in following the analyses
Counsellor	A member of the third sector organisation. Counsellors retain the same designation throughout the transcripts. Counsellor A is identified thus being the counsellor who opened up the initial session, though it does not necessarily follow that she opened every subsequent session.
PC	Programme clients are identified according to the order in which they took turns to speak in each session. PC1 is not necessarily referring to the same client in each exemplar in the chapter.
(  )	Empty brackets indicate words that are being spoken but are inaudible to the transcriber
[	Square brackets indicate the onset of ‘overlap’ between speakers’ turns at talk