Time to participate: Lessons from the literature for learning and teaching project evaluation in higher education

• A critique of the literature on learning and teaching projects in higher education.
• Evidence suggests that project evaluation is not being carried out systematically.
• Eight critical themes emerge to inform and strengthen project evaluation strategies.
• Time and participation are two overarching factors that emerge to unite the themes.
• Six issues of evaluation practice and their implications for future research.

Evaluation plays an increasingly important role in the quality-driven context of higher education. Projects that focus on learning and teaching often have evaluation expected of them, however, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of approaches nor the extent to which the praxis of evaluation is achieved. To illustrate this phenomenon, project funding and evaluation expectations are reviewed and the resulting analysis of the literature identifies eight emergent themes. Two overarching factors that unite these themes are time (or lack of it) and participation, leading to six issues for evaluation practice. Alignment of evaluation theory with practice requires focused attention if the maximum benefits of evaluation for the project processes are to be achieved.