Progress and Future Directions in Evaluation

Last year, the American Evaluation Association celebrated its tenth anniversary. The annual conference, held in November 1996 and entitled AEA: A Decade of Progress, Looking Back and Looking Forward, provided an opportunity to review the history and status of the field of evaluation and chart future directions. For this volume, we have selected a broad sampling of papers from this conference to offer the reader an array of perspectives on where the field has been and where it should be going. The seven authors, all seasoned evaluators, collectively provide a review of the development of evaluation and offer perspective on its current status and its future directions. Among the several themes noted, one cross-cutting theme emerges as a guiding beacon for the future. Evaluators, whether conducting a single study or a set of studies, are contributing to a broader enterprise. In doing so, we must be more cognizant of our responsibility to design and implement our studies with this broader contribution in mind. This is the 76th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Evaluation.

DEBRA J. ROG is a research fellow at the Vanderbilt University Institute for Public Policy Studies, where she directs the Washington office of the Center for Mental Health Policy. DEBORAH FOURNIER is an assistant professor at Boston University and the director of Educational Research and Evaluation at the Goldman School of Dental Medicine.

EDITORS' NOTES

1

(6)

Debra J. Rog, Deborah Fournier

1. What Can You Build with Thousands of Bricks? Musings on the Cumulation of Knowledge in Program Evaluation Evaluation practice has produced an overabundance of studies over the years. Evaluators need to begin to learn from such studies by synthesizing results and using this understanding to build better social intervention theory.

7

(18)

Mark W. Lipsey

2. The Landscape of Values in Evaluation: Charted Terrain and Unexplored Territory Evaluators should have a clearer sense of the moral and political meaning of practice and recognize the limitations of its current conceptualization.

25

(16)

Thomas A. Schwandt

3. Theory-Based Evaluation: Past, Present, and Future Program-theory approaches to evaluation have gained acceptability over the past twenty-five years as a means for examining the conditions of implementation that are associated with better outcomes and developing detailed program theory. They have also gained confusion, as witnessed in the review of recent studies.

41

(16)

Carol H. Weiss

4. Advances in Quantitative Evaluation, 1987-1996 Over the past decade, quantitative methods have evolved to provide evaluators with more effective means for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information.

57

(12)

Peter H. Rossi

5. Case Study Evaluations: A Decade of Progress? Review of case study methods shows that the past decade has produced increased documentation and elaboration of methods, diversification of tools, use, and acceptability.

69

(10)

Robert K. Yin

6. Learning About Welfare Reform: Lessons from State-Based Evaluations The author discusses lessons learned from twenty years of welfare reform studies and the implications for future work in light of new challenges.

79

(16)

Judith M. Gueron

7. Clarifying Goals, Reporting Results Testing the theory under the Government Performance and Results Act shows that the theory may be correct, as witnessed by the performance measurement efforts within several federal agencies.

95

(12)

Joseph S. Wholey

INDEX

107

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Progress and Future Directions in Evaluation

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials