Hi Lars!
I love evaluation and brainstorming/sharing tools like this. Can I ask, under what context is the evaluation? What is the level of connection to the participants? Do you have access to them just once? What are the goals and outcomes you are measure (learning, attitudes, behavior, etc?).
I know you are looking for indirect ways of measuring them... does that apply to the teens too?
A couple examples of my favorite ways from both formal and informal evaluation strategies include:
- A pre/post concept map. Before the program, have them draw what they know about a subject in bubbles. Connect the bubbles with words describing the relationship between two things. Then deliver the program. Then, have them use a different color pencil or marker to revise their original concept map. They can correct relationships, elaborate them, add more concepts... etc. This is a way to measure how their knowledge changes and grows.
- For example, if the topic is about the carbon cycle, then they could put key terms (producers, sunlight, respiration, decomposition, consumers, fossil fuels, etc) in bubbles. Then the descriptive words about relationships (like Sunlight "stimulates" producers) go on the lines between the bubbles.
- I love activities like "Draw a scientist" to see how role models impact children's perceptions about career fields.
- Or if you are measuring how a object or engagement tool works for children of various ages, sometimes something as simple as measuring their 'stay time' can speak to the holding power of the tool/engagement being designed.
I'm not quite sure what you are looking to measure, but I hope something here might spark a useful idea.
Warm Regards,
Mandy