About Evaluation
What is Program Evaluation?
"What distinguishes evaluation from other professions?" The following suggestions emerged from an international consultation process conducted for the Canadian Evaluation Society:
- Evaluation provides objective information.
- Evaluation measures program or policy performance.
- Evaluation can determine whether effects are actually caused by the program or policy.
- Evaluation can provide systematic information that provides a basis for value judgments.
- Evaluation applies research design principles appropriately in uncontrolled settings.
- Evaluation goes beyond the use of existing systematically collected data and collects new information to respond to specific questions about a program or policy.
- Evaluation addresses practical questions.
- Evaluation uses data from program/policy users, not just staff and managers.
- Evaluation looks for explanations; it tries to determine why things work in different contexts and for different people.
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