The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
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All Publications & Resources |
Lessons in Evaluating Communications Campaigns: Five Case Studies
This paper examines how communication campaigns with different purposes (individual behavior change and policy change) have been evaluated. It offers a discussion of theories of change that can guide evaluation planning, along with five case studies of completed campaign evaluations. Each case study includes lessons from the evaluation and the paper finishes with a set of cross-case-study lessons gleaned from these evaluations and others.
Why, When, and How to Use Evaluation: Experts Speak Out
This brief offers expert commentary on the implications of the first-year report of the national evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program for future evaluation and research. It includes a methodological critique of that study, written by Deborah Vandell.
Evaluating Education Reform
Education reform is complex and so are its evaluations. This issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores key dimensions of reform, including standards-based reform, technology in education, Comer schools, and new forms of public accountability. It addresses the links among education policy, practice, and evaluation and how research and evaluation can inform policy and practice.
Evaluating Out-of-School Time
This is the third issue of The Evaluation Exchange (Harvard Family Research Project's quarterly evaluation periodical) devoted to exploring the challenges and solutions associated with evaluating out-of-school (OST) programs. This issue includes articles on what we know from existing research and evaluation about the results that are possible from OST programming, expert commentary on what the future OST research and evaluation agenda should look like, and information about hands-on research and evaluation tools and resources. It is also includes a special report with expert commentary on the implications of the first year findings in Mathematica's evaluation of the national 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. To read the previous issues on out-of-school time, go to our issue archive.
Public Communications Campaigns and Evaluation
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange, Harvard Family Research Project's quarterly evaluation periodical, focuses on public communication campaigns and their efforts to achieve desirable social outcomes. Articles in the first half of the issue offer promising practices and tips for campaign designers and implementers. Articles in the second half examine how campaigns are being evaluated and associated issues, challenges, and innovations.
Selected Evaluation Terms
This resource provides definitions of evaluation terminology frequently used in the out-of-school time field. It also provides answers to frequently asked evaluation questions.
Evaluation's Role in Supporting Initiative Sustainability
This paper offers ideas for the roles that evaluation can play in helping ensure a discussion about sustainability is started early enough and maintained throughout an initiative. The ideas in this paper are based on Harvard Family Research Project's broad spectrum of experience in the past two decades with large-scale initiatives.
Learning From Logic Models in Out-of-School Time
This brief offers an in-depth review of logic models and how to construct them. A logic model can be a powerful tool for illustrating a program's theory of change to program staff, partners, funders, and evaluators. Moreover, a completed logic model provides a point of reference against which progress towards achievement of desired outcomes can be measured on an ongoing basis, both through performance measurement and evaluation.
Documenting Progress and Demonstrating Results: Evaluating Local Out-of-School Time Programs
A collaboration with the Finance Project, this brief provides practitioners of local out-of-school time programs with techniques, tools, and strategies for improving their program and tracking their effectiveness over time.
Evaluation for Continuous Improvement
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange examines the use of evaluation for continuous improvement. It incorporates advice from well-known experts, such as Paul Light, Rosalie Torres, and Joe Wholey, outlines innovative evaluation practices, and provides insights into the evaluations of a wide range of initiatives.
Beyond the Head Count: Evaluating Family Involvement in Out-of-School Time
This brief offers an overview of how out-of-school time programs can evaluate their family involvement strategies and practices. It draws on findings from our OST Evaluation Database, interviews, and email correspondence.
Evaluating Municipal Out-of-School Time Initiatives
To inform municipal leaders who are developing out-of-school time evaluations, HFRP scanned the city-level initiatives in its evaluation profiles database and prepared this short brief that describes the evaluation approaches, methods, and performance measures that some cities are using for evaluation.
Public Communication Campaign Evaluation: An Environmental Scan of Challenges, Criticisms, Practice, and Opportunities
This report presents what has been happening in the field of public communication campaign evaluation in recent years. It examines evaluation challenges, criticisms, and practice and includes sections on relevant theory, outcomes, and useful methods for designing evaluations. It ends with opportunities for the road ahead.
Evaluation of 21st Century Community Learning Center Programs: A Guide for State Education Agencies
This brief offers an in-depth look at the 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) evaluation requirements (both performance measurement for accountability and program evaluation) and provides practical suggestions about how to implement 21st CCLC evaluation at the state and local level. It includes a checklist of issues to consider when designing state and local 21st CCLC evaluations.
Family Support
The Spring 2002 issue looks at family support evaluations and their role in moving the field forward. This issue features a conversation with Michael Quinn Patton about historical and emerging trends in evaluation practice, descriptions of national and local evaluations that are underway, a discussion of using “effect size” to measure program effectiveness, advice on how to bring family research to legislators' attention, a look at how data can help parents assess schools, and much more.
Youth Involvement in Evaluation & Research
This brief draws on information collected from focus group interviews with representatives of 14 programs that are involving youth in their evaluation and research efforts. It examines the elements of successful youth involved research projects and offers short profiles of the 14 organizations included in the study.
Home/School/Community: Systems Interventions
The purpose of this course is to provide the student with information on a broad array of issues relating to school and community collaboration with families. Systems interventions within the home, school, and community contexts will be considered. Emphasis is placed on system-level consultation theories, research, and practice. The course prepares school professionals to function as consultants in school and community settings.
Out-of-School Time Issue #2
The Spring 2001 issue is the second in a series of two dedicated to the field of out-of-school time and after school that was started in the Volume VI, Number 1 issue. This issue features a conversation with Jane Quinn about the out-of-school time field, descriptions of national and local evaluations that are under way, a discussion of developmental research and evaluating after school programs, a description of practices that involve youth in evaluation and research, and some practical advice about using logic models in evaluating after school programs.
Strategic Communications
The Winter 2001 issue focuses on the increasing importance of strategic communications in nonprofits, examining how to best create, produce, and evaluate communications strategies. The issue features communications campaigns and their evaluations, a conversation with a top communications professional, and information and resources for designing and evaluating strategic communications initiatives.
Out-of-School Time Issue #1
The Fall 2000 issue, the first of a series of two dedicated to the field of out-of-school time and after school, addresses the challenges and possibilities for evaluating after school programs in the new era of accountability. The issue includes an interview with National Institute on Out-of-School Time founder Michelle Seligson, articles relating on-the-ground experiences with evaluation, and our new column, “Ask the Expert.”
Federal Funding in Out-of School Time With Accountability Requirements and Evaluations
These Web documents were produced by HFRP as part of its initial efforts to “map” the out-of-school time field, and detail federal funding streams for out-of-school time programs and related programming alongside their accountability requirements and evaluations. A summary section offers a narrative description of each funding stream. Funding streams are classified as major or minor depending on the amount of money they make available for out-of-school time efforts.
Organizations in Out-of-School Time: An Introduction
The out-of-school time field has grown rapidly over the past decade, with a constant influx of new voices and approaches. This publication is a summary, but far from a complete review, of organizations active in out-of-school time, grouped by topical area.
Methodology (#15)
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange includes several articles on methodological topics, particularly those involving complex initiatives or problems. Topics inlcude the logic model approach to evaluate large and diverse foundation initiatives, the difference between cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis, the challenges to evaluation in the coming years, and community action research.
Children and Youth
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange is devoted to the evaluation of youth programs that support positive youth development. Topics include evaluating strength-based approaches to youth development, youth participation in evaluation, lessons learned from the international community on evaluating youth programs, and foundation grantmaking for children and youth.
New Strategies in Foundation Grantmaking for Children and Youth
This report examines trends in foundation grantmaking for children and youth among 19 foundations. The foundations include most of the largest and wealthiest and those whose grantmaking heavily focuses on children and youth. Survey results indicate that, because the problems of youth are interconnected and require comprehensive solutions, foundations are shifting their grantmaking strategies. Several are concentrating more resources on long-term, place-based community strategies designed to improve outcomes for children and youth.