Sunday, January 19, 2025

 Equity, Evaluation and AI Assistance - Can it be Useful?

I've been using AI to increase equity in my evaluation and consulting. AI has revolutionized my workflow, so let me share my journey with you.

At the beginning of each project, it is essential to understand the problem accurately. AI has been helpful in synthesizing the different perspectives of diverse community members and partners by helping me review online meeting notes from different collaborative participants. I worked on a project focusing on substance use disorders and behavioral health emergencies in a rural community. I added special instructions to ChatGPT (“Whenever possible, suggest ways for my questions and your response to be made more equitable”). AI responses made the equity issues in my evaluation methods more obvious by reminding me to review each method and dataset for diverse respondent demographics.  I have used AI suggestions for editing the vision and mission statements, acting as an editor to ensure accuracy and readability for diverse readers (Lex-page). AI summarizes some of my worksheet data, leaving more time to explain results to diverse communities (Numerous.ai).

AI has also been invaluable as a research assistant for the YMCA to incorporate substance abuse prevention and mental health education into their youth programs (ChatGPT) and edited our reports (Canva, Scalenut, ResearchRabbit, Scholarcy) by simplifying them so that a 5th grader can understand (Guidde for videos). AI played a significant role in enhancing our surveys and interviews, recommending more precise language and additional questions to engage underserved groups (ChatGPT), as well as broadening our data collection approaches for patients from diverse backgrounds (ResearchRabbit, Scholarcy).

AI has revolutionized my work, making it more efficient and effective at increasing equity, one small step at a time. One must always be aware of the potential for AI search results to incorporate biases or be untruthful based on the training data, which tends to be biased. Carefully review all results from AI tools (@MushtaqBilalPhD, ChatGPT). AI applications are best used as collaborator-research assistants.

Lessons Learned

By leveraging AI in my evaluation and consulting work, I have experienced a transformative shift in my workflow that has significantly contributed to increasing equity. AI has proven invaluable at the beginning of each project, helping me synthesize multiple perspectives and gain a clearer understanding of complex issues. Furthermore, AI has played a crucial role in diversifying our data and ensuring that our surveys and interviews are comprehensive and inclusive. I always review the results of AI searches and AI suggestions for bias and credibility. Overall, the integration of AI has revolutionized my work, making it more efficient and effective in promoting equity.

Rad Resources

Conducting Equitable Evaluations by Katrina Bledsoe and Rucha Londhe, https://oese.ed.gov/files/2022/11/Conducting-Equitable-Evaluations.pdf

How we incorporate diversity and inclusion in evaluation by Eyerusalem Tessara, https://www.evalacademy.com/articles/how-can-we-incorporate-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-evaluation

Follow Mushtaq Bilal on X (formerly Twitter) here for sound advice on using AI for writing, revising and editing drafts of blogs and reports https://twitter.com/MushtaqBilalPhD

AI links to aid equity in evaluation: ChatGPT for ideas, reviewing drafts, outlines. Microsoft Bing and Google Bard are great too.

Note taking for meetings and saving websites and ideas, https://get.mem.ai/

Otter and Fellow for transcribing meetings, meeting note-taking, summarizing transcripts, otter.ai and/or fellow.ai .

The role of AI in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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