Untangling evaluation terms - discussing evaluation ‘types’ with clients often more useful than evaluation ‘approaches’ August 24, 2009
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Use of terms, Evaluation debates, Doing evaluation more efficiently, Using the approach, Evaluation planning , trackbackI have just put up a outcomes theory article based on a book chapter I wrote some time ago dividing the terminology used in evaluation into five groups of terms about five different ‘aspects’ of evaluation. These aspects are: evaluation approaches; evaluation types (based on the purpose of the evaluation); evaluation methods; evaluation information analysis techniques; and evaluation designs. Approaches tend to combine a range of different elements including general approaches to evaluation, philosophy of science views and for instance, quasi-political perspectives on the relationship between empowered and disempowered groups. Evaluation approaches are often not mutually exclusive from each other from a conceptual point of view. Evaluation approaches include such things as Scriven’s Goal Free Evaluation, Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation and Fetterman’s Empowerment Evaluation. While I find these very interesting from the point of view of stimulating my thinking about evaluation, I often (but not always) do not find them very useful when talking to a client about a specific evaluation.
I find that the most useful set of terms to use in discussions with clients are the ones based on the particular type of evaluation. The types of evaluation refer to the purpose of the evaluation activity. There are three types of evaluation:
- Impact/outcome evaluation - attempts to attribute intended and unintended positive and negative high-level outcomes to a particular intervention.
- Process evaluation - attempts to describe the course and/or context of an intervention.
- Formative/developmental evaluation - attempts to optimize program implementation using evaluation methods.
These three types of evaluation are interrelated. For instance, findings from process evaluation can be used as input into formative evaluation if the program is still running and is open to amendment. Process evaluation can be used to help interpret impact/outcome evaluation findings and impact/outcome evaluations of pilot/demonstration programs can be used as input into formative evaluation.
Evaluation terms struck at this level are generally more useful for discussing what evaluation you are, and are not going to do, in regard to a particular program. They can be used to think about evaluation effort across all aspects of the program life-cycle as is shown in the diagram below.
More on this can be found in two new articles I have put up:
Duignan, P. (2009). Terminology in evaluation: Approaches, types (purposes), methods, analysis techniques and designs. Outcomes Theory Knowledge Base Article No. 259. (http://knol.google.com/k/paul-duignan-phd/terminology-in-evaluation-approaches/2m7zd68aaz774/120).
Duignan, P. (2009). Evaluation types: Formative/developmental, process, impact/outcome evaluation. Outcomes Theory Knowledge Base Article No. 256. (http://knol.google.com/k/paul-duignan-phd/-/2m7zd68aaz774/119).
Paul Duignan, PhD
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