Program Evaluation

Program evaluation involves making use of social science research methods to judge the quality of a program or policy. It typically is designed to provide information to program stakeholders, including funders; public administrators and policymakers; program managers, deliverers, and clients; or citizens in general, about a program and its quality. The purpose may be to help plan a program (needs assessment), to improve an existing program (formative evaluation), or to determine whether to continue or expand a program (summative evaluation). Program evaluation emerged in the United States with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and emerged in most European countries in the 1980s. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have also been leaders in evaluation work. In the United States, most professional evaluators come from education and psychology. In Europe, and some other countries, evaluators are more likely to come from the fields of political science and economics. These differences in disciplinary training interact with and influence the choice of programs to evaluate and the methods used in evaluation studies. Today, pressures for accountability and transparency have led to an expansion of evaluation around the world. Evaluation associations are emerging in Asia (Asia Pacific Evaluation Association, or APEA, 2012), Africa (African Evaluation Association, or AfrEA, 1999), and South America, with several regional and national associations. Evaluators differ from researchers in that they work with a client to define information needs and collect data to meet those needs making use of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods as appropriate to the issues being addressed. Current issues in the field include a focus on outcomes, randomized control trials (RCTs), the role of evaluators in pursuing social justice, involving others in evaluation, building organizations’ and countries’ capacity for evaluation, and, a long-term concern, maximizing the use of evaluations.