Activity: Evaluation History
This activity parallels the previous activity. In this case the purpose is for participants to reflect on the evaluation that has been done on this program over time, on what they know about the program and how they know it, and the factors that have shaped the evaluation decisions. To the extent that the underlying program may have moved forward or backward among lifecycle phases at various points in time, it may be that the evaluation as well has moved iteratively back and forth among evaluation phases along the continuum in Figure 6. This history of evaluations contributes to a body of knowledge about the program and its context. Exploring a program’s history of evaluation illuminates both the evolution of the state of evaluation, and also the factors shaping evaluation decisions.
The prompt questions below are designed to help the working group think through the evaluation history.
- What types of evaluation have been done on this program, and when? (Include both formal and informal evaluations and feedback.)
- What have been the primary purposes of the evaluations that have been done?
- How have results been used? Have the results influenced decisions about the program?
- Who have the results been shared with or reported to?
- Does your funder require a certain type of evaluation?
- What have been the sources of information that have been used? (Documents, responses from individuals on surveys or in interviews, etc.)
- Have there been evaluations that are descriptive of the program (e.g. interviews with program participants or leaders)?
- Have there been formal evaluations of the program that included structured data collection (qualitative or quantitative data)?
- Have there been evaluations that used comparison groups or control groups?
Following the discussion, the group should try to capture the program’s evaluation history in a schematic way using either a blank version of the “State of the Evaluation” graphic used in Figure 6 (see Appendix X), or any other graphic representation that best communicates the program’s evaluation history. If there are several working groups engaged at the same time, use the opportunity to have working groups take turns sharing and describing their illustration and the program’s evaluation history with the larger group. These brief presentations should include a description of how the program has been evaluated over time and a brief description of the factors that have influenced the decisions about evaluation (stakeholder priorities, evaluation funding changes, program challenges, and so on.)
Figure 6.
