Program Evaluation: A Step-by-Step Guide

by Nancy F. Barrett

Need to make changes in your organization? Not sure how to go about it? A program evaluation makes a great start! Program A Step-By Step Guide provides practical tips for developing and implementing your own evaluations! Whether you want to improve an existing program, identify new program directions, or prove that you have met your stated goals, this book can help you do that. You will learn how * Write compelling questions * Collect, organize and analyze data and * Report the results This practical manual includes helpful tips to develop evaluations, tables illustrating evaluation approaches, evaluation planning and reporting templates AND resources if you want more information.

50 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2013

Reviews

[Craig Bowers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in the past hour while sitting here at work. So, even though I gave it simply two-stars, if you are looking for a quick and basic summary of program evaluation, I would recommend it. Nancy Barrett does succeed at providing a 101 on what program evaluation is, how to do it, and what some of the jargon actually means.

However, there were two primary factors that kept this from being a 5-star text that I will keep on my desk. First, while I embrace succinct explanations, I left this feeling as though I am only convinced that I actually need to learn more in order to have the capacity to even consider conducting an evaluation myself. Are there some helpful tips and simple examples? Sure. But the information provided seemed to, well, want to both have and eat its cake. It was going to be quick and give everything that you need to learn? It reminded me of all the videos you see online that claim that they will teach you a foreign language in a week. Uhhh... yeah, not quite logical. But she did provide some helpful information, and like I said before, if you are a complete novice or need a quick refresher, this is something that might help you out.

The second problem... A step-by-step guide about program evaluation that states that it is the revised edition is FILLED with spelling and grammatical errors. I am not going to be able to suggest this to many people because I know that they will roll their eyes and throw it away if they see that somebody doesn't know that you use "an" not "a" before a word that starts with a vowel. You would think that an author would, well, not make that mistake while writing even the rough draft of this.

So, check it out if you find it at the library or real cheap, but please do not consider this the predominant text regarding program evaluation.

[Chisangu Matome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic overview of concepts

This is in no way a detailed book by any stretch of the imagination. It provides a nice summary of some of the key concepts in program evaluation.

[Gabrielle Wilcox · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seemed like it was written as cliff notes for high school students and was filled with examples of a little bit of information being dangerous.

[Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is NOT an elaborate or thorough resource on program evaluation. The book is too broad to provide meaningful instruction on such a nuanced field and its various research methodologies.

[Sarca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple intro to Program Evaluation (reading for work)

[Gavin Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good introduction

Outline, but without detailed content
Good foundation to begin evaluation process
Worth the price in my humble opinion with some good links to additional information sources