What is program evaluation?
A beginners guide
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What is Evaluation?
This is the first in a set of handouts on the key questions about program evaluation.
This handout starts with the first question: What is program evaluation?
People often think of program evaluation as looking to answer this question:
● Does the program work? And how can it be improved?
However, there are many equally important questions:
● Is the program worthwhile?
● Are there alternatives that would be better?
● Are there unintended consequences?
● Are the program goals appropriate and useful?
That is, an evaluation can help a program improve their services, but can also help ensure that the program is delivering the right services.
See this resource for additional information:
Evaluation 101, Juliana M. Blome
NIH http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/more/ppts/blome/
Slides 3 and 4
Evaluation is a systematic assessment.
Evaluations should follow a systematic and mutually agreed on plan. Plans will typically include the following:
● Determining the goal of the evaluation: What is the evaluation question, what is the evaluation to find out.
● How will the evaluation answer the question: What methods will be used.
● Making the results useful, how will the results be reported so that they can be used by the organization to make improvements.
Additional resources about evaluation:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. MMWR 1999;48(No. RR-11).
http://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm
Evaluation is a process.
The process is a continuous feedback loop. Each step provides information useful in the following steps.
Diagram and information from:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. MMWR 1999;48(No. RR-11).
http://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm
The process involves:
● Getting stakeholders (people involved in the program) actively involved in the evaluation.
● Developing a complete understanding of the program.
● Using the knowledge to determine what information is needed and how to gather it.
● Gathering the evidence.
● Interpreting the evidence, making sure it makes sense.
● Using the results, making sure they are useful, getting stakeholders to use them, which depends on stakeholder involvement throughout the evaluation process.
● Following up, continuing communication among all involved, about the evaluation, implementing any recommendations, sharing feedback about the evaluation.
The most recent version of this handout is always at http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/
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