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April 2014 Research Spotlight: Get Started!—Resources on Using Evaluation for Continuous Improvement Harvard Family Research Project Download a PDF of this publication (130 kb)

Having the right information available at the right time goes a long way toward helping organizations improve their program performance and meet their goals. Continuous improvement denotes a shift from thinking about evaluation as a one-time effort to assess the effectiveness of a completed program to treating evaluation as a continuous learning process that provides programs data to show whether and how they are delivering value to their community over time.¹ Continuous improvement efforts help answer questions such as, What do I need to know about my organization?, What types of data can guide my organization’s direction?, and How does my staff know if we are making progress?

Many organizations that serve children and families, however, lack familiarity with evaluation methods and/or do not understand how to integrate continuous improvement efforts into their day-to-day operations. This resource guide offers practitioners frameworks and tools to help them get started. It is meant to inspire practitioners to become smart producers and consumers of data.

Learn more about research findings and recommendations from the research briefs, reports, and other entries in this Research Spotlight (PDF).

This resource was created based on information contained in journal and report abstracts; inclusion does not equate with endorsement of the reports and/or articles. We welcome your suggestions for additional materials and reasons for choosing them. Contact us at fine@gse.harvard.edu.