A comparison of expert and participant perspectives of public participation

This thesis is a comparison of expert and participant perspectives of public participation. The central research question examinedis: What can we learn, in a case study context, about the differences between expert and participant perspectives so that we can improve evaluation of watershed study public participation programs? A set of expert concerns and issues was extracted and categorized from planning literature. A set of participants concerns and issues was extracted and categorized from interviews with participants in the Hanlon Creek Watershed Study and the Mill Creek Subwatershed Study. The expert and participant concerns and issues were then compared to identify areas of overlap and uniqueness. It was concluded that the theoretical foundation of the program context has no been established, that community development theory is not incorporated into public participation theory and that evaluations based only on expert themes would miss out on important unique participant themes.