Theories of Evaluation

As the evaluation field has developed over the past several decades, evaluators have adopted different approaches to guide their work. Although it can be daunting to learn about all the different approaches to evaluation research, it is helpful to be aware of the various types of evaluation approaches, as it could help when selecting an evaluator or when designing an evaluation.

At Evalcorp, we predominantly take a utilization-focused approach to our work, meaning that we first identify how clients want to use the information before we design our evaluation plan. We want to ensure our evaluation design, methods, and reports address our clients’ most important questions and provide relevant information to help them make informed decisions. Other types of evaluation approaches include:

1)     Developmental Evaluation: By practicing developmental evaluation, evaluators become part of their clients’ program design or organizational management team. Rather than just collecting data and analyzing results, they work directly with clients to help them develop interventions to key problems.

2)     Empowerment Evaluation: In this type of evaluation, the evaluator acts as a coach or facilitator who helps clients develop the knowledge and skills to monitor and evaluate their own programs. The goal is to help clients develop their own self-determination so that they don’t become dependent on consultants to inform them of their performance.

3)     Participatory Evaluation: Evaluators practicing participatory evaluation help inform and improve the ways clients implement their programs. They become partners with their clients and help them learn how to coordinate their own evaluation efforts. This leaves the evaluator to the task of completing technical activities, like designing surveys, analyzing results, and reporting findings.

Over the next few months we’ll dig deeper into some of these theories, so be sure to come back to  learn more about the different types of evaluation theories and how they influence evaluation approaches.

For more information on other approaches to evaluation research, check out Evaluation Roots by Mark Alvin or betterevaluation.org.