Evaluation Primer
Why Conduct Program Evaluations?
Evaluations serve many purposes. Before assessing a program, it is critical to consider who is most likely to need and use the information that will be obtained and for what purposes. Listed below are some of the most common reasons to conduct evaluations. These reasons cut across the three types of evaluation just mentioned. The degree to which the perspectives of the most important potential users are incorporated into an evaluation design will determine the usefulness of the effort.
Evaluation for Project Management
Administrators are often most interested in keeping track of program activities and documenting the nature and extent of service delivery. The type of information they seek to collect might be called a "management information system" (MIS). An evaluation for project management monitors the routines of program operations. It can provide program staff or administrators with information on such items as participant characteristics, program activities, allocation of staff resources, or program costs. Analyzing information of this type (a kind of process evaluation) can help program staff to make short-term corrections ensuring, for example, that planned program activities are conducted in a timely manner. This analysis can also help staff to plan future program direction such as determining resource needs for the coming school year.
Operations data are important for responding to information requests from constituents, such as funding agencies, school boards, boards of directors, or community leaders. Also, descriptive program data are one of the bases upon which assessments of program outcome are built it does not make sense to conduct an outcome study if results can not be connected to specific program activities. An MIS also can keep track of students when the program ends to make future follow-up possible.
Evaluation for Staying on Track
Evaluation can help to ensure that project activities continue to reflect project plans and goals. Data collection for project management may be similar to data collection for staying on track, but more information might also be needed. An MIS could indicate how many students participated in a prevention club meeting, but additional information would be needed to reveal why participants attended, what occurred at the meeting, how useful participants found the session, or what changes the club leader would recommend. This type of evaluation can help to strengthen service delivery and to maintain the connection between program goals, objectives, and services.
Evaluation for Project Efficiency
Evaluation can help to streamline service delivery or to enhance coordination among various program components, lowering the cost of service. Increased efficiency can enable a program to serve more people, offer more services, or target services to those whose needs are greatest. Evaluation for program efficiency might focus on identifying the areas in which a program is most successful in order to capitalize upon them. It might also identify weaknesses or duplication in order to make improvements, eliminate some services, or refer participants to services elsewhere. Evaluations of both program process and program outcomes are used to determine efficiency.
Evaluation for Project Accountability
When it comes to evaluation for accountability, the users of the evaluation results likely will come from outside of program operations: parent groups, funding agencies, elected officials, or other policymakers. Be it a process or an outcome evaluation, the methods used in accountability evaluation must be scientifically defensible, and able to stand up to greater scrutiny than methods used in evaluations that are intended primarily for "in-house" use. Yet even sophisticated evaluations must present results in ways that are understandable to lay audiences, because outside officials are not likely to be evaluation specialists.
Evaluation for Program Development and Dissemination
Evaluating new approaches is very important to program development in any field. Developers of new programs need to conduct methodical evaluations of their efforts before making claims to potential users. Rigorous evaluation of longer-term program outcomes is a prerequisite to asserting that a new model is effective. School districts or community agencies that seek to disseminate their approaches to other potential users may wish to consult an evaluation specialist, perhaps a professor from a local university, in conducting this kind of evaluation. 
-###-
Next: Steps in Planning Evaluations
Back: An overview of education evaluation
Return to Education Evaluation Page
Last Updated -- September 14 1998, (lyp)