Program evaluations provide critical information for funders, those responsible for implementation, and the recipients of program services. Without a well-structured evaluation process, there is no reliable way to determine whether or not a program achieved its goals. We can help you establish an evaluation process with multiple benefits:
- Improves program delivery
- Demonstrates program outcomes
- Measures breadth of program implementation
- Assesses achievement of program goals
- Assesses program efficiency
- Addresses informational needs of all stakeholders
Program Evaluation Steps
At Evaluation Insights, our approach to program evaluation is to understand a program’s goals and institute evaluation processes that minimally impacts program delivery. Our program evaluation follows several basic steps:
- Assess Program Goals. Determine the intended outcomes and achievements of a program. Understanding a program’s goals is critical to developing an evaluation model that measures whether or not the program was successful. In many instances, the overarching goals of an organization must be clarified to determine how the program contributes to organizational achievement.
- Develop Understanding of Implementation Model. Collect information about the manner in which a program will be conducted. Understanding how a program is implemented enables the development of an evaluation process that optimizes opportunities to collect information.
- Design Program Evaluation. A complete evaluation methodology is developed and proposed. Methodologies measure achievement of program goals and are designed to minimize impact upon program implementation. Evaluation may apply numerous methodologies including information interviewing, documentation review/preparation, surveys, testing, or utilization of third party data sources.
- Implement Evaluation. All evaluation tools and methodologies are applied throughout program implementation. Regular feedback and exchange of information between the program implementation staff and evaluators may be utilized to inform implementation progress and facilitate course corrections. Programs utilizing a pretest/posttest evaluation methodology commonly receive pretest results shortly after they have been completed in order to facilitate optimization of program outcomes.
- Presentation of Evaluation Results. Evaluation Insights can provide complete reporting of evaluation results. This includes written reporting, presentations, data files, and any other materials the communicate evaluation outcomes. Often, different types of reporting are necessary in order to meet the needs of program implementers, program funders, and program recipients.
Process versus Empirical Evaluations
Although not mutually exclusive of one another, Evaluation Insights applies two types of evaluation processes: process and empirical evaluations. Process evaluations are commonly more qualitative in nature while empirical evaluation relies heavily upon quantitative methodologies.
Process evaluation
A process evaluation examines the structure of program implementation and specific steps taken to achieve program goals. Commonly, a process evaluation will apply interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and examinations of records documenting program implementation. This information is examined to gain an understanding of how a program is organized and how a program is perceived. In addition to providing an independent examination of how a program was conducted, results from a process evaluation demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of the process applied to implementation.
Empirical evaluation
Empirical evaluations attempt to numerically demonstrate program outcomes. Empirical measures can include public records, organization measures of performance, survey research, and pretests/posttests administered to program participants. Empirical evaluation methodologies rely upon scientific rigors to reliably and consistently measure attitudes, knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors. Often, assessments taken prior to program implementation are repeated at the conclusion of program implementation to contrast results across time. Measureable changes in survey or testing results provide compelling and empirical evidence of program outcomes and attainment of goals.
Conclusion
Evaluation Insights endeavors to work collaboratively with organizations to produce results that meet the information needs of all program stakeholders. In many evaluation processes, rapid and ongoing feedback of results to program implementers is utilized to improve program accuracy and delivery. Producing reliable results that can inform decision-making is the core goal of program evaluations, and all projects conducted by Evaluation Insights.
