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.
Volume XI, Number 2, Summer 2005
Issue Topic: Evaluation Methodology
New & Noteworthy
The New & Noteworthy section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme.
Callahan, S. (2005). Singing our praises: Case studies in the art of evaluation. Washington, DC: The Association of Performing Arts Presenters. This book highlights examples of how arts presenters have used participatory evaluation to learn about their success. Real-life stories, guides, and techniques from other fields are used to train practitioners to design their own evaluations. www.forthearts.org/book.shtml
The Evaluation Checklists Website from the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University is a compilation of checklists for conducting various aspects of an evaluation, with the goal of improving evaluation quality and consistency and enhancing evaluation capacity. Written by evaluation experts, the checklists are brief distillations of lessons learned from practice. Checklist categories include evaluation management, models, values and criteria, and meta-evaluation. At least 30 checklists are available, and the site is regularly updated. www.wmich.edu/evalctr/checklists
The Interactive Smart Chart is a free online planning tool from Spitfire Strategies that helps nonprofits develop high-impact communications strategies. It allows users to take stock of their responses and progress as they move through the planning process, and to stop and save answers at any time. By the end users have a complete communications strategy—referred to as a Smart Chart—that links overall organizational goals to the many strategic decisions necessary for a successful communications effort. The online tool also builds evaluation into the planning process, and, along with the communications strategy, at the end prints a logic model that maps measures of effort, effect, and impact to the strategy. A print version of the Smart Chart is also available. www.smartchart.org
The Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation is a new peer-reviewed online journal published in association with the doctoral program in evaluation at The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. This journal aims to communicate about evaluation to a very diverse readership, and therefore focuses on much more than just theory or empirical research. The journal explores new niches by pursuing significant evaluation happenings from countries outside of North America, translating articles into different languages, and accepting both traditional and nontraditional article formats. evaluation.wmich.edu/jmde
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Online Evaluation Resource Library's Professional Development Modules offers self-guided training on a variety of evaluation topics, including evaluation design, methodological approaches and sampling, questionnaires, and interviews. Designed both for novice and experienced evaluators, the modules present step-by-step strategies with scenarios and case studies of how strategies can be applied to specific evaluation projects. oerl.sri.com
Werner, A. (2004). A guide to implementation research. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. This toolkit for program evaluation provides a framework for organizing implementation studies and for understanding specific research strategies. The guide also addresses the range of implementation research questions and techniques available to program evaluators and the results that may be expected. Examples of implementation research on welfare programs are included. www.uipress.org