New Resource Clearly Describes Ideal Federal Evaluation Process; Applicable to Many Contexts by Leah Goldstein Moses

The federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently revised its Designing Evaluations guide. It is incredibly comprehensive, from deciding which evaluation model best fits different situations to determining which approaches to use in an evaluation. Some of the highlights:

• Page 5 describes the different reasons you might want to use an internal or external evaluator
• Pages 15-16 describe different evaluation models, and when they are most appropriate to use
• Page 20 describes GAO’s process for selecting a model; it’s easy to imagine that you could answer each of these questions and then explain to evaluation stakeholders why you recommend one approach over another. This piece particularly interested me because we have recently developed, and started piloting, a tool to help us select different data collection and analysis strategies; through answers to a number of questions can see which are the best fit.
• Starting on page 31, different evaluation designs are described in detail. A wide variety of approaches are considered, and the publication is very careful to not say one is better than another – instead pointing out that different designs are appropriate for different circumstances.

Stephanie Shipman, the Assistant Director Center for Evaluation Methods and Issues, announced the guide on the “evaltalk” listserv. The announcement immediately generated a discussion on logic models and core values (the guide includes a sample logic model and a description of how they are used). For example, one listserv participant suggested that core values should be represented in the logic model – and that activities, outputs and outcomes should flow from these values. Others, including Thomas Chapel, felt that simplicity increases the likelihood that logic models get used, and that because the selection of activities and outcomes were driven by values, adding them more explicitly to the logic model may not be necessary.