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Being an Evaluator
Demystifying the evaluation journey, this is the first evaluation mentoring book that addresses the choices, roles, and challenges that evaluators must navigate in the real world. Experienced evaluator and trainer Donna R. Podems covers both conceptual and technical aspects of practice in a friendly, conversational style. She focuses not just on how to do evaluations but how to think like an evaluator, fostering reflective, ethical, and culturally sensitive practice. Extensive case examples illustrate the process of conceptualizing and implementing an evaluation--clarifying interventions, identifying beneficiaries, gathering data, discussing results, valuing, and developing recommendations. The differences (and connections) between research, evaluation, and monitoring are explored. Handy icons identify instructive features including self-study exercises, group activities, clarifying questions, facilitation and negotiation techniques, insider tips, advice, and resources. Purchasers can access a companion website to download and print reproducible materials for some of the activities and games described in the book.
Democratic Evaluation and Democracy
Democratic evaluation brings a way of thinking about evaluation’s role in society and in particular, its role in strengthening social justice. Yet the reality of applying it, and what happens when it is applied particularly outside the West, is unclear. Set in South Africa, a newly formed democracy in Southern Africa, the book affords an in-depth journey that immerses a reader into the realities of evaluation and its relation to democracy. The book starts with the broader introductory chapters that set the scene for more detailed ones which bring thorough insights into national government, local government, and civil societies’ experience of evaluation, democratic evaluation and their understanding of how it contributes to strengthening democracy (or not). A teaching case, the book concludes by providing guiding questions that encourage reflection, discussion and learning that ultimately aims to inform practice and theory.
Evaluation Management in South Africa and Africa
This blind peer reviewed book systematically records, analyses and assesses for the first time in a single volume the implications of the global development and management of professional evaluation for the African continent.The book deals with the most strategic contemporary evaluation themes. Each of these themes contains discussions of theoretical issues illustrated with one or more short case studies, while selected longer case studies and other relevant documentation are also taken up in annexures at the end of the book. The book therefore comprises a guide to best M&E practices for purposes of systematic policy, programme and project evaluations. It is suitable for both professional M&E institutionalisation and capacity-building projects as well as for evaluation information dissemination and education at different levels in the public, private and voluntary sectors in society, especially in a developmental context.
Feminist Evaluation and Research
This thought-provoking book explores the 'whats,' 'whys,' and 'hows' of integrating feminist theory and methods into applied research and evaluation practice. Illustrative cases drawn from U.S. and international studies address a range of social and health issues. The book provides an overview of feminist theory and research strategies as well as detailed discussions of how to use a feminist lens, practical steps and challenges in implementation, and what feminist methods contribute to research and evaluation projects. Reflections at the close of each section invite the reader to consider key questions and common themes across the chapters. With a focus on social justice models, the book covers ways to conduct feminist research and evaluation in effective, innovative, and culturally competent ways in diverse social and cultural contexts.
Principles-Focused Evaluation
How can programs and organizations ensure they are adhering to core principles--and assess whether doing so is yielding desired results? From evaluation pioneer Michael Quinn Patton, this book introduces the principles-focused evaluation (P-FE) approach and demonstrates its relevance and application in a range of settings. Patton explains why principles matter for program development and evaluation and how they can serve as a rudder to navigate the uncertainties, turbulence, and emergent challenges of complex dynamic environments. In-depth exemplars illustrate how the unique GUIDE framework is used to determine whether principles provide meaningful guidance (G) and are useful (U), inspiring (I), developmentally adaptable (D), and evaluable (E). User-friendly features include rubrics, a P-FE checklist, firsthand reflections and examples from experienced P-FE practitioners, sidebars and summary tables, and end-of-chapter application exercises. ÿ
Purposeful Program Theory
Between good intentions and great results lies a program theory not just a list of tasks but a vision of what needs to happen, and how. Now widely used in government and not-for-profit organizations, program theory provides a coherent picture of how change occurs and how to improve performance. Purposeful Program Theory shows how to develop, represent, and use program theory thoughtfully and strategically to suit your particular situation, drawing on the fifty-year history of program theory and the authors' experiences over more than twenty-five years. "From needs assessment to intervention design, from implementation to outcomes evaluation, from policy formulation to policy execution and ev...
Essentials of Utilization-Focused Evaluation
"Provides both an overall framework and concrete advice for how to conduct useful evaluations that actually get used." - preface.
Outcome Harvesting
Are you a grant maker, manager or evaluator who must assess your work to improve as well as be accountable for the use of resources and results? Does the project, program or organization you fund, manage or evaluate contend with substantial uncertainty about what to do and what will be the results? Do you thus experience constant change and unexpected and unforeseeable actors and factors in your intervention? Do you need to know what you are achieving and how in real time? And therefore, do you seek an alternative to conventional monitoring and evaluation of social change results? If yes, then you are the audience for this book. Beginning in 2002, working closely with co-evaluators and commi...
The Action Research Dissertation
"The Action Research Dissertation is a must-have resource for any student contemplating an action research project, thesis, or dissertation and equally valuable to researchers undertaking and writing up their action research."--Jacket.
Growing the Knowledge Base in Evaluation
Evaluation use was identified by Henry and Mark (2003) as being the single most studied area in the field of evaluation. They refer with a sense of nostalgia to the ‘golden age’ of research on use perhaps almost implying that it came and went. Professor J. Bradley Cousins has had a longstanding and continuing commitment to advancing theory and practice regarding use through empirical research on evaluation, and through the professional development of students and practitioners within North America and internationally. The important influence and impact of the contributions of Cousins and associates is the focus of this edited book. This book brings together a distinguished, international...
