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EVALUATION
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What is evaluation?
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- Evaluation is collecting information and monitoring progress and impacts to help decision-makers to make more informed decisions about program and activities. Evaluation serves as a vital and useful process to ensure sustainability, accountability and productivity to any organization.
- The function of evaluation looks at both how well (qualitative) and how much (quantitative) an organization’s processes align with its business strategies. According to SIL, International (1999) " The information gathered from evaluation is then used to ensure effective changes and /or improvements and should be a continuous management process. The valuable analysis gained from an evaluation proves quite useful for planning, management and policy purposes.
- In general evaluation is a valuable tool for learning, development, accountability and monitoring progress and results.
Learning and development
- What are the projects strengths and weaknesses?
- What are the implementation problems?
- Why have things worked, or not?
- What are best practices?
Accountability
- Has the project worked?
- How has the money been spent?
- Should the project continue?”
Monitoring
- How well are we doing?
- Are we doing the right things?
- What difference are we making?”
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| Program Evaluation |
Program Evaluation "is a formalized approach to studying the goals, processes, and impacts of projects, policies and programs" (Wikipedia, 2008).
- Formative Evaluation occurs early in the program. The results are used to decide how the program is delivered, or what form the program will take. For example, an exercise program for elderly adults would seek to learn what activities are motivating and interesting to this group. These activities would then be included in the program.
- Process Evaluation is concerned with how the program is delivered. It deals with things such as when the program activities occur, where they occur, and who delivers them. In other words, it asks the question: Is the program being delivered as intended? An effective program may not yield desired results if it is not delivered properly.
- Outcome Evaluation addresses the question of what are the results. It is common to speak of short-term outcomes and long-term outcomes. For example, in an exercise program, a short-term outcome could be a change knowledge about the health effects of exercise, or it could be a change in exercise behavior. A long-term outcome could be less likelihood of dying from heart disease (Wikipedia, 2008).
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