Program Evaluation

I. Conducting Evaluation—The Sourcebook.- 1. Focusing the Evaluation.- What will be Evaluated?.- What is the Purpose for Evaluating?.- Who will be Affected by or Involved in the Evaluation?.- What Elements in the Setting are Likely to Influence the Evaluation?.- What are the Critical Evaluation Questions?.- Does the Evaluation Have the Potential for Success?.- 2. Designing Evaluation.- What are Some Alternative Ways to Design Evaluation?.- What does a Design Include?.- How do You Construct a Design?.- How do You Recognize a Good Design?.- 3. Collecting Information.- What Kinds of Information should You Collect?.- What Procedures should You Use to Collect the Needed Information?.- How much Information should You Collect?.- Will You Select or Develop Instruments?.- How do You Establish Reliable and Valid Instrumentation?.- How do You Plan the Information Collection Effort to Get the Most Information at the Lowest Cost?.- 4. Analyzing Information.- How will You Handle Returned Data?.- Are Data Worth Analyzing?.- How will You Analyze the Information?.- How will You Interpret the Results of Analyses?.- 5. Reporting Information.- Who should Get an Evaluation Report?.- What Content should be Included in a Report?.- How will Reports be Delivered?.- What is the Appropriate Style and Structure for the Report?.- How can You Help Audiences Interpret and Use Reports?.- When should Reports be Scheduled?.- 6. Managing Evaluation.- Who should run the Evaluation?.- How should Evaluation Responsibilities be Formalized?.- How much should the Evaluation Cost?.- How should Evaluation Tasks be Organized and Scheduled?.- What Kinds of Problems can be Expected?.- 7. Evaluating Evaluation (Meta-Evaluation).- What are Some Good Uses of Meta-Evaluation?.- Who should do the Meta-Evaluation?.- What Criteria or Standards Should You Use To Evaluate The Evaluation?.- How do You Apply a Set of Meta-Evaluation Criteria?.- What Procedures are Used in Meta-Evaluation?.- II. Applications—The Casebook.- The Local School Case Examples.- Overview of the Cases.- Case L-1: A School Principal Asks: How Can We Determine What Inservice (if any) is Needed?.- Case L-2: A Special Education Staff Member Asks: How Can I Design, Operate and Evaluate a Workshop?.- Case L-3: The Staff of A Resource Center Ask: How Can We Find Out Why Our Learning Center Isn’t Working?.- Case L-4: Project Staff Members (and a Superintendent) Ask: How Can We Tell if Our Inservice Project is Making a Difference to Pupils?.- The State Agency Case Examples.- Overview of the Cases.- Case S-1: Evaluation Consultants Ask: How Can We Meet a State Commission’s Information Demands?.- Case S-2: A Program Manager (from a Strange Land) Asks: Now That Funds Are Cut, How Can I Review Proposals Without Alienating Applicants or Legislators?.- Case S-3: A State Coordinator Asks: Is the Staff Developing We’ve Been Funding Working?.- The College and University Case Examples.- Overview of the Cases.- Case C-1: A Special Educaton Department Asks: How Can We Revise Our Curriculum to Meet New Certification Requirements?.- Case C-2: The Director of a Small Project Asks: How Can I Use Evaluation Techniques to Help Manage My Project?.- Case C-3: An Assistant Professor Asks: What Information Do I Need to Evaluate My Foundation’s Course?.- Case C-4: An Internal Evaluator for a Department Project Asks: Is Our Evaluation Design Good Enough to Use?.- Case C-5: A Department Chairperson Asks: How Can We Use Evaluation Data to Refocus the Curriculum?.