Evaluation: Did You Do It? Did It Matter?

• NCJ Number: 202730
• Author(s): Marjorie Rosensweig
• Date Published: June 2002
• Length: 26 pages
• Contract Number(s): OIM008560OID
• Sponsoring Agency: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin (SAMHSA)
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin (SAMHSA)
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For other documents in this series, see NCJ-202727-29 and NCJ-202731.

Annotation

This fourth in a series of five "Action" booklets on preventing youth violence addresses the critical building blocks of evaluating a youth-violence prevention project, with attention to how to assess collaboration and prevention intervention.

Abstract

The booklet first advises that evaluation is to be viewed as a "decision support model that generates useful information for the ongoing success of your program." It further advises that evaluation should be integrated into the program's operation from initial problem identification to the convening of partners, from the identification of resources to the modification for improvement. Evaluation should be a part of the ongoing strategic planning process. An important element of a successful evaluation and therefore a successful program is to eliminate the barriers between the independent evaluators and practitioners involved in planning and implementing the program. Trust and collaboration between evaluators and practitioners make it possible to implement a more rigorous and structured evaluation. In discussing the articulation of a theory of change, the booklet advises that collaborations articulate a theory of change that represents stakeholders' beliefs about what children and their families need and the strategies that will help meet those needs. The booklet outlines the building blocks of a theory of change. The booklet then profiles a logic model that expresses the theory of change, such as looking at the violence-prevention initiative as a whole and the ways the collaboration and intervention interact. In providing guidelines for evaluating the collaboration, attention is given to partnership characteristics, partnership capacity, and partnership outcomes. Methods for conducting an evaluation of the collaboration are then described. The booklet then turns to an evaluation of the intervention. The four most frequently used evaluation designs are briefly described: pretest-posttest designs, experimental designs, quasi-experimental designs, and time series designs. Some typical difficulties with evaluations are then identified, and ways of addressing them are discussed. The booklet concludes with a brief description of the results of an effective evaluation. A list of 17 resources