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 lll, Number 1, 1997
Issue Topic: Methodology
From the Director's Desk
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| Heather Weiss |
For those of us whose lifeblood is evaluation, keeping up with the “latest and greatest” methodologies can be difficult. Since evaluation gained recognition as a discipline in the 1970s, the field has developed in response to both our growing knowledge as well as changes in the programs and policies that we seek to learn about.
We have come a long way from the experimental models that first guided our work. Since that time, we have developed approaches that have enabled us to look programs more holistically, that incorporate participants in the design and conduct of studies, and that even help to build self-evaluative capacity. We have learned how to study large-scale categorical programs as well as more complex and integrated community-based ones. We have expanded the quantitative methods we use and have drawn from the disciplines of anthropology and sociology to gain new insights for qualitative research.
We first launched The Evaluation Exchange as a forum to help evaluation practitioners and others to share new ideas and experiences in evaluating systems reform and comprehensive child and family services. Over the past three years, we have highlighted work in the areas of family support, school-linked services, results based accountability, and community-based initiatives. While evaluation methodology has been an undercurrent in all our issues, in this first issue for 1997, we focus more explicitly on this topic. In our Theory & Practice section, we focus on a particularly contentious issue in evaluation—that of mixing methods. Jennifer Greene, who has worked extensively in this area, sets forth a new framework for mixing evaluative approaches that promises to move us beyond the discussions of paradigms that have mired us in controversy in the past. In Promising Practices, HFRP researcher Julia Coffman reminds us that ideas outside our discipline also have relevance for us, among them that of “learning organizations,” which has come to be used frequently in the private sector. Included in this article are citations for a number of publications about this important and growing field. In Questions & Answers, Robert Yin, author of Case Study Research and Applications of Case Study Research, answers some of our questions about applying case study methodology to the evaluation of comprehensive and collaborative community-based initiatives.
As our field evolves, particularly with the focus on accountability these days, management information has become an important aspect of evaluation and program practice. In our Spotlight section, Susan Blank of the Foundation for Child Development presents some of her observations from a recent study she conducted of MIS development and use in community-based agencies. In our last issue of The Evaluation Exchange, we discussed the struggle that many community-based organizations face in trying to evaluate client experience with comprehensive rather than categorical programs. Our Evaluations to Watch section features Maurice Lim Miller, who discusses an evaluation instrument for self-sufficiency that he developed and is using in San Francisco. Finally, while an exhaustive list of new books and publications on evaluation methodology would fill several newsletters, we have included a few in our New & Noteworthy section.
In the current climate of shrinking public resources and a generally cynical view of government programs, policymakers and program practitioners will continue to look to evaluators for insights about what works. And we will be challenged to refine our craft such that we can continue to make a contribution.
In closing, I would like to introduce our new Evaluation Exchange team: Ann Hannum, our new co-editor and publications coordinator; Karen Horsch, our co-editor and evaluation research specialist; and Caroline Schaefer, our research assistant.
Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Founder & Director
Harvard Family Research Project