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There is no need to skirt the issueprograms being evaluated have justifiable concerns around what an evaluation report may do to the future of their program. Now, if all stakeholders have been honest with themselves from the beginning, it wont be entirely unexpected to learn that their program is or is not performing well. However, the evaluation report may be the very first time that the outcomes are displayed in such a concrete way.
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by Meridith Polin
The role of the evaluator is much like that of Peter Brand in the movie Moneyball (based on the book by Michael Lewis, a favorite author of mine). Peter Brands role as an economics whiz kid hired by the Oakland As was to help them figure out how to win. Using meaningful statistics, Peter and the General Manager Billy Beane, helped turn the game of baseball on its head by looking at data in a new way.
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Carson Research has had an exciting and productive 2012, and we’re thankful for our clients, friends, families, and evaluation colleagues, who were an integral part of our successes this year!
The CRC Team, 2012
Of all the developments that have taken place, one of the most noticeable is the growth of our team, and the diversification of our skill set that has come along with our new team members.
Looking towards the New Year, we’d like to share how each CRC staffer chose to complete the following statement:
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It’s already the end of November, and were entering that time of year when people are inclined to look back and reflect on the events of the previous months. At CRC we are not quite ready to reminisce about all of 2012 just yet, but before November ends we do want to revisit an important event for us that occurred a few weeks ago. At the end of October, some of the CRC staff flew out to Minneapolis to attend the American Evaluation Association conference (and to see our first snowfall of the season!
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by Sheila Matano
An article by Lehn Benjamin in the September 2012 issue of the American Journal of Evaluation explored the extent to which existing outcome measurement frameworks are aligned with the actual activities performed by nonprofit staff to ensure positive outcomes for their clients.
Benjamins analysis of numerous measurement guides revealed that existing outcome measurement frameworks focus primarily on program activities completed and the changes in the users as a result of those program activities.
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Use of an evaluations findings (i.e., lessons learned) and process use (i.e., evaluation use that takes place before lessons learned are generated and feedback initiated) are two of the clearest, simplest examples of the uses for evaluations. (Fleischer and Christie (2009) offer other examples, but recognizing they dont have clear definitions, they wont be discussed here.) By now there is much agreement that there is a great deal of useful information generated during the evaluation process itself, information that could increase involvement and learning.
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I must admit Im excited about todays post. Not because it gives us an excuse to indulge ourselves in a lot of unfocused social media (e.g. facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter) fun, but because of the opportunities and uses these tools can provide program evaluators. Not only have these platforms have provided us, as evaluators, with greater ease in gleaning resources (such as through the American Evaluation Associations facebook page) and communicating with clients and colleagues (via Twitter and our local evaluators LinkedIn group), but weve begun to see programs use of these platforms as an important piece of their evaluation stories.
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A May 2012 New York Times Opinionator article reviewed the success of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) home visiting program. NFP is a program in which registered nurses visit with first time, high-risk pregnant women throughout their pregnancy and early motherhood. These nurses teach the women the importance of prenatal care, talk with them about the childcare and child development, and work with the mothers on appropriate parenting behaviors until the child is 2 years old.
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Experimental design, a major component of pure (i.e. basic) research is considered the gold standard for research. The premise of experimental design is that a group of participants are randomly assigned to treatment or intervention groups. This random assignment is intended to limit differences between groups. Additionally, the participant and/or experimenter are often blind to which group the participant belongs. With this type of design, you can effectively compare the outcomes across groups at the end of a program.
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Typically our blogs focus on evaluation techniques that are specific to program evaluations. But what about the organizations executing the programs? Is there a way to evaluate an organization with the goal of improving how it functions?
Coghlan and colleagues (2003) suggest that the appreciative inquiry method can be a constructive approach to evaluating the function of an organization. Appreciative inquiry is used more often in the private sector, but is being seen more and more as an evaluation approach with applications in the public sector as well.
