Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning | A Guide for NHRIs in the Asia Pacific Module 3: Developing your MEAL Plan Step 2: Check planned data outcomes Review the outcomes of the MEAL activity. • Will the data collected meet these outcomes and answer key questions? • Do you need to gather more information? If so, what types and from what sources? Step 3: Decide the questions and method for analysis While you will generally know what you want from the data, you now need to find out what insights you can gain from the it, also known as ‘mining the data’. This involves taking time to look deeply into the data to find out what it is telling you. You will need to: • be clear about what you are asking of the data (what are your questions?), • decide the method/s most appropriate to find the answers, – Qualitative data will involve grouping similar pieces of information together and looking for themes, patterns, relationships and variances – Quantitative data will involve cross-tabulating the data, making calculations and drawing conclusions by comparing categories of data. Step 4: Do the analysis Once you have decided on the questions and method, it’s time to do the analysis. • Analysing quantitative data may involve making calculations and creating graphs. • Analysing qualitative data may involve reviewing, coding and organising written information into themes. Step 5: Interpret the results This final step is to reflect on the MEAL results to answer your questions and learn what it is telling you about the original situation. This is the step that: • gives meaning to the data collection process, • provides the information you need to draw conclusions, measure your indicators, answer your evaluation questions, assess what has changed compared to the baseline(s), produce new information, make recommendations and inform future decision-making. Consider how much of the outcome can be attributed to your NHRI’s intervention. For example, if the MEAL data indicates family violence is reduced, do you have enough information to understand what impact your NHRI had on this situation? Sometimes several factors (dependencies) may have been at play and so true attribution is not possible. If this is the case, you can report that in your findings. In some instances, you can confidently state your NHRI impacted on a situation (e.g. successfully mediating a complaint between two parties). In others, such as the impact your NHRI has had on reducing family violence, it is more difficult. Reducing family violence most likely involves a number of actors, therefore not all of the reported impact can be attributed to your NHRI. 68