Practicing Evaluation: A Collaborative Approach

About this book

"Rita grounds her collaborative work in the American Evaluation Associations Guiding Principles situates it within its Collaborative Participatory and Empowerment Evaluation Topical Interest Group and discusses it within the confines of the evaluation literature. Sounds like sound evaluation to me." David Fetterman Past-President American Evaluation Association and Director of Evaluation Stanford University When stakeholders collaborate with evaluators their understanding increases and the utility of the evaluation is often enhanced. With over 20 years of evaluation experience author Rita OSullivan has created an approach that actively engages program stakeholders in the evaluation process. Practicing Evaluation: A Collaborative Approach contains strategies and techniques for conducting successful collaborative evaluations in a variety of program settings including education family support health and non-profit organizations. Although many evaluation textbooks cover the theory and steps of an evaluation they do not often include specifics regarding how to put these concepts into actual practice in a real-world setting such as a school district or business. Using actual cases from educational health and business settings OSullivan shows readers how to better involve stakeholders in the evaluation process. Key Features A chapter on to how to design program evaluations with a collaborative approach Checklists within the chapters and end-of-chapter exercises that give readers the opportunity to practice what theyve learned Boxed examples that provide snapshots of other evaluations and highlight effective evaluation techniques and collaborative evaluation practices Excerpts from the two most widely cited sources covering professional ethical standards (the American Evaluation Association Guidelines for Professional Practice and the Joint Committee Standards for Educational Program Evaluation)