Comprehensive yet accessible, this text provides a practical introduction to the skills, attitudes, and methods required to assess the worth and value of human services offered in public and private organizations in a wide range of fields. Students are introduced to the need for such activities, the methods for carrying out evaluations, and the essential steps in organizing findings into reports. The text focuses on the work of people who are closely associated with the service to be evaluated, and is designed to help program planners, developers, and evaluators to work with program staff members who might be threatened by program evaluation.
When I taught a graduate course in program evaluation, I used an earlier edition of this book. It served as a text very nicely. It explores such key issues, at the outset, as planning an evaluation, developing good measures of program performance, and ethical issues involved. Then, three key elements of evaluation--assessing need and planning programs and assessing if the program is being implemented as desired. Ultimately, evaluation is about assessing whether or not a program is having desirable (or undesirable) effects. Part III considers how one might go about that task. Finally, Part IV speaks of how one can apply finsings effectively.
All in all, a nice introduction to program evaluation.
I never do this but I have had my head in this book for 5 months for class and have spent more time with this content than most of the books I actually want to read. The content is really helpful in understanding program development and is very comprehensive, but it would have been more palatable in a digital version.
This book was the first to open my eyes to an Improvement-Focused Model and creating a Learning Culture. You really must be interested in in learning about Program Evaluation to like this book. I am so I liked it.
This book is great if you're interested in program evaluation, which I am not. It's well-organized and fairly easy to read. I got the information I needed for my grad class and it wasn't torture to read.