Defining Evaluation and Program Evaluation

Definig Evaluation

Many authors agree their concepts of evaluation, some words are key to these concept; some of them are "systematic”,"process","assessment";

with these keywords can give us an idea of what evaluation is  and to form a homogeneous concept  in which all authors participate with their ideas to conclude in an accepted concept and that contains the necessary elements  to zoom in on a which clear and simple concept.

We could define evaluation as below: Evaluation is a systematic assessment in which the elements work together in order to perform a function; to provide a useful feedback of a specific object. 

Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products, and organizations to improve their effectiveness.

As I said before, evaluation is a process in which there are a variety of elements to contribute to the activity of the evaluation, today I want to show the main elements of a evaluation.

·        Measure.

·        Assess.

·        Making a decision.

As we can see, this is the right order in the process of a evaluation.

When we talk about measure, we refer to the activity of the recompilation of data (gathering), in which organizing, processing, analyzing, synthesizing and interpreting of data are the main components in the measure.

The assess, have as main components synthesizing, and the interpretation of the data collected.

And we talk about making a decision the drawing and conclusion are the last components in the evaluation process.

The main objectives in an evaluation are: A useful Feedback, and influence decision-making or policy formulation; according to the results of the evaluation.

The types of evaluation will be according to the object and the purpose of the evaluation such as: Formative evaluations in which the quality of the implementation, assessment of the organization and personnel and procedures are evaluated in context of improve the object to be evaluated.

The summative evaluation refers to give an overview to the outcomes, so summarize the results of a program to estimate the costs associated to the object.

There are a lot of companies or institution that make the same questions:

Why to evaluate?

The main purpose to evaluate is to provide a useful feedback to a variety of audiences including sponsors, donors, clients, group of administrators, personnel of staff.

And the other question is what can be evaluated?

There is a wide variety of elements that can be evaluated such as: Programs, projects, products, institutions, advertising campaign, a social or economical reform, and so on.

Program evaluation

A program evaluation can be defined as a carefully collecting information about a program or project or some aspects of a program, in order to make necessary decisions about the program been evaluated.

A program evaluation can be helpful  to know the impacts of the products or services that a company offer to the clients or customers to make the delivery mechanisms to be more effective and less costly, identify if that are you doing is that you think you are doing, to produce results to promote services to the community, and compare programs to know o decide which should be retained

A program evaluation has some myth in which people express their doubts about a program evaluation; some of them are:

• Evaluation an useless activity

A lot of people believe that evaluation is a useless activity, that generates cost and complicated data with useless outcomes.

• Success or failure of a program.

Many people believe that the evaluation provide in their results if a program work or failure and that with this evaluation the program never will have problems in their process.

• Evaluation is complex only expert.

By other hand people believe that evaluation is a complex process and this provoke that no all person will be able to use it or understand the complexity of their process.

The reason to evaluate can be describe it as below:

Verify process, understand, improve, produce useful data, measure effectiveness and help management to understand the program.

The selection of the right method to evaluate is useful when we want to evaluate a program or project.

Some of the main program evaluation methods are:

Goal-Based Evaluation is enfocated to evaluate predeterminated goals or objectives at the beginning of the program evaluation.

Process-Based Evaluation is oriented to understand how a program works and to know if produce the expected results.

Outcomes-Based Evaluation is enfocated to realize if the organization is doing the right  to reach the results.

There are a series of methods to collect information some of them are:

Questionnaires, surveys, checklists,

Interviews

Documentation

Observation

Focus groups

Case studies