Skip Office Navigation
OPE: Office of Postsecondary Education
Current Section
Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education - Notes on Evaluation Design
Archived Information


Dora Marcus
Former FIPSE Evaluation Specialist

October 2001

Introduction. One of the essential components of FIPSE projects is a solid evaluation plan that guides data collection and furnishes solid evidence about grant processes and outcomes.

Three key features should characterize your evaluation plan:

  • Formative evaluation will assure the quality of program management by tracking the effectiveness of project development and implementation.

  • Summative evaluation, especially one that carefully documents impact on learners, may transform your promising project into a national model of reform.

  • Controlled comparisons between program participants and non-participants will clarify the impact of your particular innovation and its potential for benefiting other campuses.

Aside from confirming your program's success, a strong evaluation will:

  • inform project activities and practices
  • justify expenditure of funds
  • enhance administrative planning and policy making
  • assure that project objectives have been met
  • provide evidence for program achievements
  • monitor program implementation
  • note unintended consequences
  • inform allocation of resources
  • identify problems and costs

Evaluation Design. To make a convincing case for any reforms brought about by your project, you will need to consider:

  • Limiting yourself to a few clear and specific objectives that have measurable qualities

  • Selecting measures that specify who, when, and how the data will be collected, analyzed and reported

  • Building evaluation measures into the routines of program procedures, rather than appending them later

  • Using multiple measures, rather than a single measure, when possible (Similar results establish credibility.)

  • Orienting evaluation measures primarily toward behavior, especially student academic performance

  • Using project documents and records for on-going process evaluation

  • Consulting with evaluation experts at your institution early in the design of the project's evaluation

  • Engaging an independent evaluator who does not stand to gain personally or professionally from the project results

  • Designing an evaluation that takes into account the project's eventual dissemination audiences and potential adapters and their data needs

  • Collecting information on the project's cost-effectiveness

  • Providing evidence of the wider impact of your project: how adaptable is the model and how likely is institutionalization?

FIPSE Home



   
Last Modified: 07/17/2009