Evaluability assessment (EA) can lead to development of sound program theory, increased stakeholder involvement and empowerment, better understanding of program culture and context, enhanced collaboration and communication, process and findings use, and organizational learning and evaluation capacity building. Evaluability Assessment: Improving Evaluation Quality and Use, by Michael Trevisan and Tamara Walser, provides an up-to-date treatment of EA, clarifies what it actually is and how it can be used, demonstrates EA as an approach to evaluative inquiry with multidisciplinary and global appeal, and identifies and describes the purposes and benefits to using EA. Using case examples contributed by EA practitioners, the text illustrates important features of EA use, and showcases how EA is used in a variety of disciplines and evaluation contexts. This text is appropriate as an instructional text for graduate level evaluation courses and training, and as a resource for evaluation practitioners, policymakers, funding agencies, and professional training. “The most impressive aspect of this book is that it positions EA as an approach that perfectly fits within the current philosophical views on program evaluation… The authors do a great job connecting these theories to practice, and provide good guidelines.” —Sebastian Galindo-Gonzalez, University of Florida “This book is focused on one very important topic in the scope of program evaluation content. It establishes the foundation for a variety of applications: impact assessment, program development, and formative evaluation. This text provides new insights and methods for conducting evaluability assessment.” —S. Kim MacGregor, Louisiana State University “The book is written in a very readable style, is well organized and referenced. I like the inclusion of case studies, guidelines for actually doing EA, and the extensive discussion of its alignment with other models of evaluation process.” —Iris Smith, Emory University

My interest in and appreciation for program evaluation began in the early 1970's when conducting a curriculum development research project at the University of Florida's P. K. Y onge Laboratory School. This interest was sparked when it became apparent that testing the success of an education program required more skills than just statistics and research methods. After pursuing additional formal schooling, I embarked on a career featuring educational program evaluation as its central thrust--as a private consultant, later in a university health sciences center involving seven academic colleges, and then in the Cooperative Extension Services of Florida and Maryland. Adding evaluability assessment (EA) to the performance of evaluations, to program development, and to teaching about evaluation has been a significant development for me personally, and I hope to those who have been participants with me in each endeavor. This book grew out of many of these experiences and involved numerous colleagues who made significant contributions. First among these is Dr. George Mayeske, Program Evaluation Specialist, Extension Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. c.

The second edition of Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation offers managers, analysts, consultants, and educators in government, nonprofit, and private institutions a valuable resource that outlines efficient and economical methods for assessing program results and identifying ways to improve program performance. The Handbook has been thoroughly revised. Many new chapters have been prepared for this edition, including chapters on logic modeling and on evaluation applications for small nonprofit organizations. The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation is a comprehensive resource on evaluation, covering both in-depth program evaluations and performance monitoring. It presents evaluation methods that will be useful at all levels of government and in nonprofit organizations.

Foundations of Program Evaluationheralds a thorough exploration of the field of program evaluation--looking back on its origins. By summarizing, comparing, and contrasting the work of seven major theorists of program evaluation, this book provides an important perspective on the current state of evaluation theory and provides suggestions for ways of improving its practice. Beginning in Chapter Two, the authors develop a conceptual framework to analyze how successfully each theory meets the specific criteria of its framework. Each subsequent chapter is devoted to the presentation of the theoretical and practical advice of a significant theorist--Michael Scriven, Donald Campbell, Carol Weiss, Joseph Wholey, Robert Stake, Lee Cronbach, and Peter Rossi.

Recipient of a 2021 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Evaluation in Today’s World: Respecting Diversity, Improving Quality, and Promoting Usability is a timely and comprehensive textbook that guides students, practitioners, and users of evaluations in understanding evaluation purposes, theories, methodologies, and challenges within today’s sociocultural and political context. Veronica G. Thomas and Patricia B. Campbell include discussions of evaluation history, frameworks, models, types, planning, and methods, through a social justice, diversity, and inclusive lens. The authors focus on ethics in diverse cultural contexts, help readers understand how social problems and programs get politicized and, sometimes, framed through a racialized lens, show how to engage stakeholders in the evaluation process, and communicate results in culturally appropriate ways. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.

The 'Encyclopedia of Evaluation' recognises the growth of evaluation around the world & highlights all the major contributions to the field. There are over 400 entries organised alphabetically.

This book looks at the foundations of school self-evaluation from a scientific as from a practical perspective. Planning concepts, restructuring of education systems, organizational theory on schools, evaluation methodology and models of school effectiveness and school improvement are discussed as contributing to the overall conceptualization of school self-evaluation. A broad range of approaches is presented and methodological requirements are discussed. School self-evaluation contains controversial issues that reflect tension between the need for objectivity in a context that is permeated by values and potential conflicts of interests. Similar tensions may be seen to exist with respect to the static and "reductionist" aspects of available data collection procedures in a complex and dynamic situation and the appeal for external accountability on the one hand and improvement oriented self-refection on the other. The mission of the book is to clarify these tensions and offer ways to deal with them in practical applications. The school effectiveness knowledge base is offered as a substantive educational frame of references that serves an important function in selecting relevant factors for data collection and the use of the evaluation results.

The long-awaited new edition is here! Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, by Peter H. Rossi, Mark W. Lipsey, and Gary T. Henry, is the best-selling comprehensive introduction to the field of program evaluation, covering the range of evaluation research activities used in appraising the design, implementation, effectiveness, and efficiency of social programs. Evaluation domains are presented in a coherent framework that not only explores each, but recognizes their interrelationships, their role in improving social programs and the outcomes they are designed to affect, and their embeddedness in social and political context. Relied on as the "gold standard" by professors, students, and practitioners for 40 years, the new Eighth Edition includes a new practical chapter on planning an evaluation, entirely new examples throughout, and a major re-organization of the book’s content to better serve the needs of program evaluation courses. "The Eighth Edition of Evaluation is a massive improvement on an already stellar text. The breadth and depth of coverage—while still keeping a practical focus—make this the go-to book for program evaluation classes and practitioners alike." —B. Andrew Chupp, Indiana University Available with Perusall—an eBook that makes it easier to prepare for class Perusall is an award-winning eBook platform featuring social annotation tools that allow students and instructors to collaboratively mark up and discuss their SAGE textbook. Backed by research and supported by technological innovations developed at Harvard University, this process of learning through collaborative annotation keeps your students engaged and makes teaching easier and more effective.

This practical, user-friendly resource helps students successfully complete an evaluation capstone: a dissertation, thesis, or culminating project where a student conducts an evaluation as their capstone experience. Authors Tamara M. Walser and Michael S. Trevisan present a framework to support students and faculty in maximizing student development of evaluator competencies, addressing standards of the evaluation profession, and contributing to programs and disciplinary knowledge. Their framework, and this book, is organized by six fundamentals of evaluation practice: quality; stakeholders; understanding the program; values; approaches; and maximizing evaluation use. Throughout the book they use the metaphor of the journey to depict the processes and activities a student will experience as they navigate an evaluation capstone and the six fundamentals of evaluation practice. In pursuit of a completed capstone, students grow professionally and personally, and will be in a different place when they reach the destination and the capstone journey is complete.