The Program Evaluation Standards

Including a new section on evaluation accountability, this Third Edition details 30 standards which give advice to those interested in planning, implementing and using program evaluations.

With oversight from the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, Yarbrough, Schulha, Hopson, and Caruthers have revised and illustrated this new edition of the Program Evaluation Standards. These thirty standards support the core attributes of evaluation quality: utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy, and accountability, and provide guidance to anyone interested in planning, implementing, or using program evaluations. The book is an invaluable resource for practicing evaluators, students, evaluation users, and clients.

Including a new section on evaluation accountability, this Third Edition details 30 standards which give advice to those interested in planning, implementing and using program evaluations.

"The Program Evaluation Standards is a 'must-have' book for anyone responsible for reviewing evaluation proposals, planning and conducting evaluations, managing evaluation projects, or judging the merit and worth of evaluations once completed. For experienced practitioners, it provides a set of values and principles by which to guide successful practice, that is, a set of criteria that determines whether educational evaluations are trustworthy and fair. The Standards sets expectations of the design and implementation of educational evaluation for all practitioners in all types of educational arenas, even those involved in social programming endeavors. For newcomers and those less experienced who may be responsible for commissioning and using evaluations, the Standards supplies a useful framework of generating a list of questions to raise about any evaluation plan or final report in an effort to assess its pros and cons. The book is an invaluable 'how-to' resource for graduate students venturing out into the field, and it instills a sense of what it means to be a responsible evaluator. For clients or consumers, the book offers advice on what they should expect of an evaluation"--Publisher description.

Describing 27 standards for sound evaluations of educational personnel at all levels, this updated resource includes new and revised standards, in-depth explanations, case studies, and more.

The book begins with the main strategic choices an evaluator needs to make between approaches: quantitatively,by explicating criteria, needs, standards, and performances, or qualitatively, by studying the activity, aspirations, problems, and accomplishments of the participants and critical observers. After reading the text, students will have a better appreciation of evaluation as a process that needs to be custom-fit to the situation. Throughout the book, Stake presents evaluation as a series of choices for the reader: - To remain independent or to join with program staff or stakeholders - To value personal experience as evidence or to shun it as biased - To aid development formatively or to assess the existing program summatively - To use issues, goals, gains, efficiency, or problem solving as the key conceptual structure - To invest small or large in trying out and validating data-gathering procedures - To support the standards and ethical codes of professional associations