Program Evaluation: Methods and Case Studies

by Emil J. Posavac, Raymond G. Carey

Comprehensive yet accessible, this book 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. Readers are introduced to the need for such activities, the methods for carrying out evaluations, and the essential steps in organizing findings into reports. The book focuses on smaller projects carried out by an internal evaluator (i.e., 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. Features case studies and short profiles of individual program evaluators engaged in conducting evaluations in private service agencies, foundations, universities, and federal, state, and local governments. Program An Overview. Planning an Evaluation. Selecting Criteria and Setting Standards. Developing Measures. Ethics in Program Evaluation. The Assessment of Need. Monitoring the Operation of Programs. Single Group, Nonexperimental Outcome Evaluations. Quasi-Experimental Approaches to Outcome Evaluation. Using Experiments to Evaluate Programs. Analysis of Costs and Outcomes. Qualitative Evaluation Methods. Evaluation Interpreting and Communicating Findings. How to Encourage Utilization. For Program Evaluators, Program Planners, Program Administrators, Public Administrators in all types of human services--Criminal Justice, Corrections, Public Health, Public Administration, Community Nursing, Educational Administration, Substance Abuse Program Administration, Social Work, etc.

Genres: Nonfiction, Academic

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1985

Reviews

[Jess]

Required reading for my Program Evaluation class. It was great at simplifying the evaluation process, but is just very dull read.

[Kayla]

Actually read all but 1 chapter! Textbook for school...

[Steven Peterson]

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.

[Oscar Lilley]

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.

[Mrs. Schonour]

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.

[Dave]

"Liked" might be a strong word, but it explained things pretty well. Other than statistics.

[Marina]

This is a good book for a new educators. It provides with various evaluation methods and illustrative case studies.