Building Evaluation Capacity

'Evaluative thinking is an acquired competence, not at all natural. This book offers the best and most comprehensive materials and exercises available for evaluation teaching and training. Students need practice to develop evaluation skills. These exercises provide opportunities to practice. Stakeholders need to learn to think evaluatively to participate meaningfully in evaluations. Every evaluation is therefore also a teaching opportunity and these materials facilitate the essential understandings needed to engage stakeholders. At the essence of all 72 activities presented by Preskill and Russ-Eft, from understanding different types of evaluation to making methods choices and analyzing data, is the challenge of thinking evaluatively. This book is a tremendous contribution to the profession' - Michael Quinn Patton, author of "Utilization-Focused Evaluation" and "Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods". 'This book is an excellent resource for classroom and field instruction as well as professional development' - Katherine Ryan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 'Finally, here is a book that goes beyond the theory of evaluation, or the question of what evaluation entails. Instead, it provides hundreds of practical approaches to actually do it. Beyond being all you wanted to know but were afraid to ask, this answers questions most of us have never thought about. It is a remarkable gift to our profession' - John H. Zenger, Managing Partner of Extraordinary Performance Group and CEO of Provant, Inc. "Building Evaluation Capacity" provides 72 activities for learning how to design and conduct evaluation studies. These activities address the entire evaluation process, including: an understanding of what evaluation is; the politics and ethics of evaluation; the influence of culture on evaluation; various evaluation models, approaches, and designs; data collection and analysis methods; communicating and reporting progress and findings; and, building and sustaining support for evaluation. Each activity includes an overview, instructional objectives, time estimates, materials needed, handouts, and procedures for effectively using the activity, whether there are a few participants or an unlimited number in small groups. To help the reader locate specific kinds of activities, this book includes a chart that names the activity, the time needed to implement the activity, and whether background information or knowledge is required prior to implementing the activity. This book also includes several strategies for forming groups and a glossary of instructional strategies. This book is ideal as a text for evaluation courses throughout the social sciences. Students, instructors, trainers, consultants, and managers will all find countless ideas and strategies that facilitate learning.