In a reflective commentary, the authors address the implications of the fact that, in action settings, implementation and evaluation are often carried on by the same person, and they raise the question, "Should evaluation become implementation?" (PN)

The user-oriented and utilization-focused evaluation design of the two-year Caribbean Agricultural Extension Project, funded by Aid to International Development, is reviewed. The evaluation scope, stakeholders, evaluation team credibility, official approval of evaluation, and confidence in the evaluation process are addressed, within a…

The nine articles of this theme issue provide overviews of legislative program evaluation and demonstrate the tensions caused by the conflict between utility and rigor in such evaluations. Legislative evaluation is concerned with evaluation utilization because legislators commission evaluations they expect to use. (SLD)

Ten functions of program theory are reviewed: contributing to social science knowledge; assisting policymakers, discriminating between theory failure and program failure, identifying the problem and target group, providing program implementation description, uncovering unintended effects, specifying intervening variables, improving formative use…

Strategies for use by clients who commission evaluation studies in the private, university, or governmental sector are outlined. Topics covered include establishing the purpose of the evaluation, assembling in-house management staff, specifying work and expertise requirements, establishing confidentiality and project control, and managing results.…

Four functions of federal project officers in managing program evaluations with support from contract research firms are described: (1) articulating evaluation requirements; (2) providing for fairness in contract awards; (3) monitoring ongoing studies; and (4) transmitting evaluation results to decision makers. (Author/PN)

Stakeholder-based studies modify the relationship between evaluator and user, producing conflict that can cause evaluators to regress to familiar, traditional patterns that leave interactive evaluation strategies only partially implemented. (Author/PN)

Evaluability assessment is a diagnostic and prescriptive technique that can be used to determine the extent to which different problems inhibit program evaluation. It involves policymakers, managers, and staff in developing program theory, clarifying intended uses of evaluation information, and planning further evaluations that would stimulate…

This theme issue discusses the misuse of evaluation. The eight articles all discuss instances in which the evaluation process or evaluation findings were misused. Misuse is usually not the result of methodological issues but rather is an issue of human relations and sometimes of political pressure. (SLD)

Evaluation must take into account both executive and legislative politics and their interactions. A five-part continuum evaluation process is suggested for the development of a policy question and its translation into knowledge that is credible, timely, responsive, and usable. Evaluators have a major responsibility in this process. (Author/JAZ)

Evaluation synthesis, a meta-evaluation method developed by the General Accounting Office to improve evaluation utilization by legislators, is described. It is designed to: (1) focus on the information needs and priorities of legislators, and (2) ensure continuous communication between sponsor and evaluator. The strengths and limitations of this…

The promise of the stakeholder approach to evaluation lies in its potential to counter criticism that evaluation is too narrow, unrealistic in its standards for success, unfair to program staff and participants, and irrelevant to decision makers. (Author)

Critiquing the stakeholder idea, the author states: if government chooses to take account of competing views in social program evaluation, it can get a better result if it encourages the competing views to find a voice of their own, not to speak through the government's chosen instrument. (Author/PN)

Deliberately involving urban education stakeholders in the Cities-in-Schools evaluation study improved the utility of the findings for formative evaluation stakeholders but not for summative evaluation stakeholders. (Author/PN)

Stakeholder evaluation was designed to address widely recognized problems in the conduct of evaluation. However, global propositions about the problems and prospects of program evaluation obscure the circumstances in which social science can contribute to social problem solving. (Author/PN)