This engaging text takes an evenhanded approach to major theoretical paradigms in evaluation and builds a bridge from them to evaluation practice. Featuring helpful checklists, procedural steps, provocative questions that invite readers to explore their own theoretical assumptions, and practical exercises, the book provides concrete guidance for…

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), a unit within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is responsible for advising the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families on increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of programs to improve the economic and social well-being of children and families. In collaboration…

This notebook provides guidance on the Monitoring and Technical Assistance Review System (MTARS). The manual is intended for use by Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) staff who manage MTARS and by MTARS reviewers who conduct site visit activities. The notebook is also designed to help Councils, Protection and Advocacy Systems, and…

The purpose of this Guide is to provide education officials, program providers, and others seeking to sponsor a rigorous program evaluation with practical advice on finding a capable evaluator. More specifically, this Guide offers practical advice on finding an evaluator to conduct a rigorous evaluation to measure the effect of an educational…

This checklist was prepared as an aid to evaluators, funding agents, clients, members of program staff about to be evaluated, and pertinent audiences in planning, preparing, and reviewing contracts for conducting evaluation studies. It contains neither a set of "how to" procedures for constructing contracts, nor a discussion of the many…

The author provides a checklist of questions for directors of programs undergoing external evaluation, concerning the evaluation effort (purpose, focus, criteria, outcome) and the evaluators (selection, experience, approach, meta-evaluation). (SK)

The purpose of this Guide is to advise researchers, policymakers, and others on when it is possible to conduct a high-quality randomized controlled trial in education at reduced cost. Well-designed randomized controlled trials are recognized as the gold standard for evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention (i.e., program or practice) in…

Aims to assist evaluators working with an institutional review board (IRB). Asserts that evaluators must accept the legitimacy of IRB review and learn about requirements and pressures even as they educate the IRB about social science methodology and empirically demonstrable risks. (SLD)

Noting that program evaluators can profit by adopting the investigative journalist's goal of discovering hidden information, this guide explores the journalist's investigative process--without its element of suspicion--and discusses how components of this process can be applied to program evaluation. After listing the major characteristics of the…

This handbook was developed to provide managers working with the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a basic guide for the evaluation of NSF's educational programs. It is aimed at people who need to learn more about what evaluation can do and how to do an evaluation rather than those who already have a solid base of experience in the field.…

Responsible scientists/evaluators must be assertive contract negotiators who understand and respect the legitimate needs and obligations of all pertinent parties to the contract. Evaluators should not work under conditions that prevent them from providing an appropriately comprehensive and critical evaluation, nor that prevent useful secondary…

A 19-step general evaluation model is described through its four stages: identifying problems, prescribing program solutions, evaluating the operation of the program, and evaluating the effectiveness of the model. The role of the evaluator in decision making is also explored. (RAO)

The direction of this workshop is toward two major goals: (1) participant understanding of the kinds of information an evaluation can provide for educational decision making; and (2) participant understanding of the general procedures and problems involved in selecting, collecting, analyzing, and reporting that information. It is the intent of the…

This manual was written to help program self-study committees finish their job of evaluation. There is one fact which describes how the manual is to be used, which is that committee members will make judgments about how well the program works; those judgments will be based upon the evidence collected during the earlier phases of the project. A key…

This new edition offers an evaluation text that ranges from identifying the primary users of an evaluation to focusing the evaluation, making methods decisions, analyzing data, and presenting findings. Both practical and theoretical, the book tells how to conduct program evaluations and why they should be conducted in the manner prescribed. Each…