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Evaluation Report Review

Conduct a search for reports of evaluation studies and select a published report for review and comment.  Many reports are now available on the Internet (check the EDF 712 Online Resources).

Include the following sections in your discussion of the evaluation report.

  • Complete title of the report, date, place of publication, and identified authors.
  • Complete information about the sponsor, agency, and evaluator.
  • A brief summary of the major objective(s) of the evaluation.
  • A brief summary of the major findings of the evaluation as presented in the report.
  • Identify a set of criteria that should be followed by a useful, quality program evaluation. This might include guidelines for the methodology, research design, organization, content, conclusions, relationship with the agency and its constituents, etc.
  • Your conclusions and assessment of the report.
Present your review in a well-organized paper with clearly identified sections.  Be sure to make reference to content of the report that you are citing or discussing in your paper.

Length = 5 to 8 pages.


EVALUATION DESIGN PROJECT (60 points)

The assignment is to prepare a design or plan for a program evaluation of an existing program offered by an actual organization. The selected organization may be public or private, nonprofit or for-profit and may be engaged in providing any type of service to any type of constituency. The organization should be of reasonable size and should have multiple sites for service delivery. The evaluation must use some form of experimental design and must be original and entirely your own work.

  1. The evaluation design will include the following:
    1. Objectives of the evaluation (1 page)
    2. Background (2 pages)

      1. Origin and development of the program
      2. Description of the organization
      3. Goals of the program (including a diagram of the program's causal model)
      4. Description of the program (including a diagram of program operation)

    3. Proposed program evaluation (2 pages)

      1. Evaluation design
      2. Data collection procedures
      3. Data collection instruments
      4. Problems and limitations

    4. Cost-benefit considerations (1 page)

    5. Results (1 page)

      1. Outline of an evaluation report
      2. At least three "dummy tables" that would be included in the final report

    6. Budget estimate. How much will the evaluation cost? (1 page)

  2. Format. Evaluation designs should contain at least 7 pages of text exclusive of exhibits, charts, tables, and appendices. It is expected that designs will represent graduate-level work in both content and presentation. Papers that are poorly written or badly typed or both are not acceptable.

  3. Design due dates.
Feb. 23:
Submit name of organization and program selected for evaluation.
Mar. 16:
Submit statement of evaluation methodology. These will be discussed in class.
Apr. 20:
Submit completed evaluation design. [This is tentative: Each student will make a 10 minute class presentation describing her or his evaluation project. For the presentation, assume you are an evaluation professional presenting and explaining the proposed design to a funding agency or client organization. You may want to use handouts and visual aids during your presentation.]