Along with the late Howard Freeman, Richard Berk was a founding editor of "Evaluation Review" (then "Evaluation Quarterly") in 1977. He resigned as editor of this journal at the end of 2010. In this article, he reflects on his experiences. (Contains 3 notes.)

Regressions that control for confounding factors are the workhorse of evaluation research. When treatment effects are heterogeneous, however, the workhorse regression leads to estimated treatment effects that lack behavioral interpretations even when the selection on observables assumption holds. Regressions that use propensity scores as weights…

Research synthesis of evaluation findings is a multistep process. An investigator identifies a research question, acquires the relevant literature, codes findings from that literature, and analyzes the coded data to estimate the average treatment effect and its distribution in a population of interest. The process of estimating the average…

Web-based surveys have become more prevalent in areas such as evaluation, research, and marketing research to name a few. The proliferation of these online surveys raises the question, how do response rates compare with traditional surveys and at what cost? This research explored response rates and costs for Web-based surveys, paper surveys, and…

Evaluations that combine social science and law have tremendous potential to illuminate the effects of governmental policies and yield insights into how effectively policy makers' efforts achieve their aims. This potential is infrequently achieved, however, because such interdisciplinary research contains often overlooked substantive and…

The study of "scientific excellence" is taking on increasing importance in the development of research policies in many nations. However, scientific excellence is difficult to define because of its multidimensional and highly complex character. This work contributes to the state of the art by exploring an effective, simple, and…

This article describes rates of missing item responses in personal digital assistant (PDA) assessments as compared to paper assessments. Data come from the evaluation of a classroom-based leisure, life skills, and sexuality education program delivered to high school students in Cape Town, South Africa. Analyses show that the paper assessments had…

Although experiments are viewed as the gold standard for evaluation, some of their benefits may be lost when, as is common, outcomes are not defined for some sample members. In evaluations of marriage interventions, for example, a key outcome--relationship quality--is undefined when a couple splits up. This article shows how treatment-control…

The development of European Community administrative authority has greatly influenced the development of an evaluation culture among the southern and central member states of the European Union. The present case study from Spain provides an example of this diffusion through the use of an empowerment evaluation approach to build evaluation capacity…

Two competing approaches to policy analysis are distinguished: a credibility approach, and a truth approach. According to the credibility approach, the policy analyst's role is to search for plausible argument rather than truth. Each approach has pragmatic tradeoffs in fulfilling the goal of providing usable knowledge to decision makers. (TJH)

Valuation shows promise as a disciplinary core of social science evaluation research. Previous attempts by those involved in social science to define evaluation by method and/or process have failed. It is argued that the fallacies of the dichotomizing fact and value confusing ethical neutrality with objectivity must be avoided. (TJH)

This article identifies a surprising dearth of studies that explicitly link communication and evaluation at substantive, theoretical, and methodological levels. A three-fold typology of evaluation studies referring to communication is proposed and examples given. The importance of organizational communication in program delivery is stressed and…

This methodological study examines an original data collection model designed to incorporate human factors and enhance data richness in qualitative and evaluation research. Evidence supporting this model is drawn from in-depth youth and adult interviews in one of the largest policy/program evaluations undertaken in the United States, the Drug,…

Experiences from evaluation of the American Sociological Association's Project to Improve Undergraduate Training in Sociology, and ways that evaluators can avoid alienating program participants are discussed. Data highlight the futility of measurement couched solely in terms of success and failure. A conceptual framework based on organizational…

As with all media, the Internet structures and frames information, rewarding some information search and decision behaviors while punishing others and, thereby, strongly influences evaluation research results and possibilities. Now that the Internet is for many evaluators the information medium of choice, the impacts of the medium on evaluation…