Anne T. Vo - Böcker

This book has been replaced by Evaluation Essentials, Third Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-5543-7.

This book has been replaced by Evaluation Essentials, Third Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-5543-7.

Beloved for its conversational style and reliable advice, this text is now in a revised and updated third edition, reflecting key developments in evaluation. It includes expanded coverage of equity and social justice issues, values and cost analysis, visualizing qualitative data with software, and more. Twenty-six concise chapters, or "sessions," give students, applied researchers, and program administrators a solid foundation for conducting or using evaluations. Covering both quantitative and qualitative methods, the book emphasizes fostering evaluation use. It shows how to build collaborative relationships with users; formulate answerable evaluation questions; deal with contingencies that might alter the traditional sequence of an evaluation; and collect, analyze, and report data. Student-friendly features throughout the sessions include titles written as questions, bulleted recaps, "Thinking Ahead" and "Next Steps" pointers, cautionary notes, and annotated suggestions for further reading. An in-depth case study provides the basis for end-of-session practice exercises.New to This Edition*New sessions on context-sensitive evaluation, including the organizational, sociopolitical, and community contexts of a program.*New or expanded discussions of timely topics: identifying evaluation decision makers, analyzing program costs, coding and visualizing qualitative data with software, and more.*Updated suggestions for further reading and discussion in every chapter.

Beloved for its conversational style and reliable advice, this text is now in a revised and updated third edition, reflecting key developments in evaluation. It includes expanded coverage of equity and social justice issues, values and cost analysis, visualizing qualitative data with software, and more. Twenty-six concise chapters, or "sessions," give students, applied researchers, and program administrators a solid foundation for conducting or using evaluations. Covering both quantitative and qualitative methods, the book emphasizes fostering evaluation use. It shows how to build collaborative relationships with users; formulate answerable evaluation questions; deal with contingencies that might alter the traditional sequence of an evaluation; and collect, analyze, and report data. Student-friendly features throughout the sessions include titles written as questions, bulleted recaps, "Thinking Ahead" and "Next Steps" pointers, cautionary notes, and annotated suggestions for further reading. An in-depth case study provides the basis for end-of-session practice exercises.New to This Edition*New sessions on context-sensitive evaluation, including the organizational, sociopolitical, and community contexts of a program.*New or expanded discussions of timely topics: identifying evaluation decision makers, analyzing program costs, coding and visualizing qualitative data with software, and more.*Updated suggestions for further reading and discussion in every chapter.

This volume addresses a fundamental and highly debated issue in the evaluation field – the use of evaluation information for decision-making. Chapter authors honor the contributions of Professor Marvin C. Alkin to the evaluation use literature and advance our thinking on the topic by exploring a wide range of issues related to the theoretical and practical challenges of using evaluation information to make informed, evidence-based decisions. Readers will come away from this volume with a new and clearer understanding of the theoretical, contextual, methodological, and political dimensions of use and with direction for practice. Chapters are written by leading evaluation scholars, including Ernest House; Stewart Donaldson and Tarek Azzam; Eric Barela; Richard D. Nunneley, Jr., Jean A. King, Kelli Johnson, and Laura Pejsa; Eleanor Chelimsky; Michael Quinn Patton; and Wanda D. Casillas, Rodney K. Hopson and Ricardo L. Gomez.Evaluation Use and Decision-Making in Society: A Tribute to Marvin C. Alkin will be of great interest to evaluation students, scholars and practitioners. This volume has scholarly application for those who desire a state-of-the-art resource for the latest insights and perspectives on one of the most pressing issues that the evaluation field faces today, while also serving as a useful guide for both novice and experienced evaluation practitioners. It is appropriate for use in a variety of evaluation courses including Introduction to Evaluation and Procedural Issues in Evaluation as well as topical seminars such as Evaluation Use and Decision-Making.