Download or read book Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1986 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Patton's classic text retains the practical advice, based on empirical observation and evaluation theory, of the original. It shows how to conduct an evaluation, from beginning to end, in a way that will be useful -- and actually used. Patton believes that evaluation epitomizes the challenges of producing and using information in the information age. His latest book includes new stories, new examples, new research findings, and more of Patton's evaluation humour. He adds to the original book's insights and analyses of the changes in evaluation during the past decade, including: the emergence of evaluation as a field of professional practice; articulation of standards for evaluation; a methodological synthesis of the qualitative versus quantitative debate; the tremendous growth of 'in-house' evaluations; and the cross-cultural development of evaluation as a profession. This edition also incorporates the considerable research done on utilization during the last ten years. Patton integrates diverse findings into a coherent framework which includes: articulation of utilization-focused evaluation premises; examination of the stakeholder assumption; and clarification of the meaning of utilization. --Publisher description.

Download or read book Essentials of Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Provides both an overall framework and concrete advice for how to conduct useful evaluations that actually get used." - preface.

Download or read book Principles Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by Guilford Publications. This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can programs and organizations ensure they are adhering to core principles--and assess whether doing so is yielding desired results? From evaluation pioneer Michael Quinn Patton, this book introduces the principles-focused evaluation (P-FE) approach and demonstrates its relevance and application in a range of settings. Patton explains why principles matter for program development and evaluation and how they can serve as a rudder to navigate the uncertainties, turbulence, and emergent challenges of complex dynamic environments. In-depth exemplars illustrate how the unique GUIDE framework is used to determine whether principles provide meaningful guidance (G) and are useful (U), inspiring (I), developmentally adaptable (D), and evaluable (E). User-friendly features include rubrics, a P-FE checklist, firsthand reflections and examples from experienced P-FE practitioners, sidebars and summary tables, and end-of-chapter application exercises. ÿ

Download or read book Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1986-05 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Patton's classic text retains the practical advice, based on empirical observation and evaluation theory, of the original. It shows how to conduct an evaluation, from beginning to end, in a way that will be useful -- and actually used. Patton believes that evaluation epitomizes the challenges of producing and using information in the information age. His latest book includes new stories, new examples, new research findings, and more of Patton's evaluation humour. He adds to the original book's insights and analyses of the changes in evaluation during the past decade, including: the emergence of evaluation as a field of professional practice; articulation of standards for evaluation; a methodological synthesis of the qualitative versus quantitative debate; the tremendous growth of 'in-house' evaluations; and the cross-cultural development of evaluation as a profession. This edition also incorporates the considerable research done on utilization during the last ten years. Patton integrates diverse findings into a coherent framework which includes: articulation of utilization-focused evaluation premises; examination of the stakeholder assumption; and clarification of the meaning of utilization. --Publisher description.

Download or read book Developmental Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables. Provided is essential guidance for making evaluations useful, practical, and credible in support of social change.

Download or read book Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fifth Edition of the bestselling Utilization-Focused Evaluation provides expert, detailed advice on conducting evaluations that promote effective use of the findings. The authors begin by describing the essence of utilization-focused evaluation, and then outline 10 operating principles. They conclude with chapters focused on how evaluation can be used to promote a more thoughtful, equitable, and sustainable world.

Download or read book Blue Marble Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by Guilford Publications. This book was released on 2019-11 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global thinking principle -- Anthropocene as context principle -- Transformation engagement principle -- Integration principle -- Transboundary engagement principle -- GLOCAL principle -- Cross-silos principle -- Time being of the essence principle -- Yin-yang principle -- Bricolage methods principle -- World savvy principle -- Skin in the game principle -- Theory of transformation principle -- Transformation fidelity principles : evaluating transformation -- Transformational alignment principle : transforming evaluation to evaluate transformation.

Download or read book Facilitating Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Quinn Patton’s Facilitating Evaluation: Principles in Practice is the first book of its kind to explain in depth and detail how to facilitate evaluation processes with stakeholders. Using the author’s own stories of his experiences as an evaluation facilitator, the book illustrates the five evaluation facilitation principles that are the organizing framework for addressing how to work with stakeholders to generate evaluation questions, make decisions among methods, interpret findings, and participate in all aspects of evaluation. Ultimately, this book will help readers perform facilitation to enhance the relevance, credibility, meaningfulness, and utility of evaluations. "A must-read for anyone considering a high-impact evaluation!" –Margaret Lombe, Boston College

Download or read book Essentials of Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2011-08-22 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on Michael Quinn Patton's best-selling Utilization-Focused Evaluation, this briefer book provides an overall framework and essential checklist steps for designing and conducting evaluations that actually get used. The new material and innovative graphics present the utilization-focused evaluation process as a complex adaptive system, incorporating current understandings about systems thinking and complexity concepts. The book integrates theory and practice, is based on both research and professional experience, and offers new case examples and cartoons with Patton's signature humor.

Download or read book Evaluation Utilization written by Larry J. Weber and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 1988-10-11 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of New Directions for Program Evaluation serves as a vehicle to report the observations and practices of evaluators from a number of perspectives regarding the utilization of evaluations. Topical interest groups from the American Evaluation Association are represented in these chapters as well as authors engaged in research on evaluation. The sourcebook represents a review of factors that promote or inhibit utilization and a compAndium of new directions in examining utilization. It provides a forum for the continued examination of the issues and practices associated with the utilization of program evaluationsincluding a review of old concepts as well as new and emergent ideas about utilization. This is the 39th issue of New directions for Program Evaluation. For more infromation on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals page.

Download or read book Collaborative Approaches to Evaluation written by J. Bradley Cousins and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outlining the principles J. Bradley Cousins and colleagues developed to guide collaborative approaches in evaluation, this text provides case studies for how these principles have then been applied in practice.

Download or read book Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Ricardo Ramírez and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Enhancing Evaluation Use written by Marlène Läubli Loud and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enhancing Evaluation Use: Insights from Internal Evaluation Units offers invaluable insights from real evaluators who share strategies they have adopted through their own experiences in evaluation. Readers will learn about the challenges, solutions, and lessons drawn from the experience of evaluators working in a wide range of organizations. Referencing the latest literature, contributors discuss factors that help or undermine attempts to foster an evaluative thinking and learning culture within an organization. Applicable in a wide range of situations, their accounts demonstrate the initiative and innovative thinking they use to address challenges in various, sometimes complex, evaluation settings. Questions at the end of each chapter stimulate thought and discussions about the issues raised and allow readers to apply their findings to their own situations. "This book speaks to a cutting-edge topic, that is, the potential to generalize program evaluation expertise to larger organizational questions, and the cases from multiple international contexts represent a unique feature." —John Clayton Thomas, Georgia State University "The use of actual cases to highlight major concepts in evaluation in the public sector is a great feature." —Danica G. Hays, Old Dominion University "The text provides practical information from a variety of organizational contexts and the integration of international experiences provides for expanded discussion of evaluation theory and practice." —Kathleen Norris, Plymouth State University "The key strengths of this book lie in its national, supra-national and international organizational contexts, its consistency in insider perspectives, and the detailed examples provided." —Donna Haig Friedman, University of Massachusetts, Boston "The book of essays reviewed here was edited by two eminent evaluators. It fills an important gap in the literature: in pursuit of improved quality of evaluation products, evaluation thinkers have lavished attention on evaluation methods, ethics and use but they have sorely neglected evaluation governance issues and have largely failed to probe the workings of evaluation within organizations. Yet, most evaluations are commissioned by (or undertaken within) organizations. The choices organizations make in structuring evaluation functions and designing evaluation processes have a major bearing on the relevance, validity and usefulness of evaluations. Refreshingly, the book offers fresh mental models and practical lessons about evaluation systems and practices adopted in diverse organizational settings. All contributors to the book are seasoned practitioners. They hail from national, supranational and international organizations and many of them have trespassed across these thematic and organizational boundaries. They all are equipped to draw on a vast reservoir of hands---on experience as evaluation commissioners, managers, internal evaluators or external practitioners. Remarkably, they also display considerable familiarity with relevant themes treated by the organization management and evaluation literature. Given its pragmatic focus the book is bound to elicit broad based interest among evaluation practitioners. While it addresses familiar dilemmas and challenges (evaluation independence, evaluation utilization, organizational learning, nurturing of an evaluation culture, etc.) it does so from the distinctive perspective of "insiders" who have had to contend with a variety of organizational constraints and management pressures. Revealingly most contributors find good reasons to be optimistic about the possibility of positive change. The stage is set by John Mayne whose introductory and authoritative chapter identifies the critical importance of organizational factors in the utilization of evaluation results. This is followed by Bastiaan de Laat’s chapter which puts forward an ingenious analytical construct: the "tricky triangle" of relationships that links commissioners, evaluators and evaluands. Specifically De Laat unmasks and assesses the different and complex configurations that result from this triangular interplay. Penny Hawkins’ elegant contribution underlines the importance of evaluation independence. It highlights the considerable impact that the electoral cycle may have on evaluation approaches. It also reveals that indigenous cultures may present formidable obstacles to the very notion of external evaluative oversight. The next chapter penned by Marlene Laubli’s is equally perceptive in tracing the creative adaptation that the evaluation function underwent in response to changes in the organizational force field of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health’s Evaluation Unit. In a similar vein Erica Wimbush provides a lucid exposition of the strategies used to bridge evaluative knowledge and management action in Scotland’s public health agency. Still within the health field, Nancy Porteous and Steve Montague show convincingly that transformative organizational change in Canada’s Public Health Agency was facilitated through judicious evaluation programming and what has come to be called "double loop learning". Finally, Bastiaan de Laat and Kevin Williams summarize important findings from of two empirical studies of evaluation use in the European Commission that go a long way in identifying good practices for evaluation commissioning in a supra--- national organizational context. The next two chapters of the book focus on two specialized agencies of the United Nations. They tread gently in what is admittedly a highly sensitive and contested terrain. Maria J. Santamaria Hergueta, Alan Schnur and Deepak Thapa discuss how the World Health Organization’s evaluation function evolved towards greater independence over several decades while Janet Neubecker, Matthew Ripley and Craig Russon focus on the innovative techniques used within the International Labour Organization to enhance utilization of self evaluation findings. The final chapter by Marlene Laubli Loud misses the opportunity to compensate for the "good news" bias that understandably characterizes the previous contributions. Surprisingly, it displays ambivalence towards evaluation independence which it equates with externality, a concept soundly rejected by de Laat. But setting this dimension aside, the chapter is interesting and valuable since it reflects the co---editor’ vast experience as an evaluator, evaluation trainer and evaluation manager in diverse national and international contexts. Thus the chapter provides a useful compilation of "take away" messages focused on good evaluation management practices. It is on solid grounds when it describes how to make effective use of advisory committees, motivate potential evaluation users, design good terms of reference, select the right evaluators, craft judicious evaluation policies and keep an eye out for political "windows of opportunity". Each chapter of the book concludes with a crisp exposition of overarching findings, discussion topics and references. Thus the volume should be of practical value to teachers, students, professional evaluators as well as evaluation commissioners and programme managers. All in all, this is a book that belongs on your shelf if you are intent on enhancing the role that evaluation plays in your organization." —Robert Picciotto, UKES Council Member

Download or read book Forage Quality Evaluation and Utilization written by George C. Fahey and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 1032 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a historical foundation as well as a review of the state-of- the-art in forage science, detailing 25 years of progress in forage quality, evaluation, and utilization, along with the latest developments and new directions for future research. The volume is divided into six sections: overview of forage science; identification and quantitative measurement of forage quality components; intake as a critical element of forest quality; role of digestion and metabolism in determining forage quality; integrating concepts affecting changes in forage quality; and improving forage quality and evaluation. No index. Member price, $36. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book How to Use Qualitative Methods in Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1987-12 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces the reader to qualitative approaches--a major development in the field of evaluation during the last decade. This volume presents an introduction to the approach--differentiates it in the method and philosophy from more traditional quantitative methods; specifies the kinds of evaluation questions for which it is most appropriate; and explains the design decisions and sampling strategies which underlie its implementation. Step-by-step guides for planning and conducting fieldwork and observations; doing in-depth interviewing; analyzing, interpreting and reporting results; and many examples--from a wide range of disciplines and professions--clarify the use of qualitative methods in evaluations.

Download or read book Program Evaluation Theory and Practice written by Donna M. Mertens and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging text takes an evenhanded approach to major theoretical paradigms in evaluation and builds a bridge from them to evaluation practice. Featuring helpful checklists, procedural steps, provocative questions that invite readers to explore their own theoretical assumptions, and practical exercises, the book provides concrete guidance for conducting large- and small-scale evaluations. Numerous sample studies—many with reflective commentary from the evaluators—reveal the process through which an evaluator incorporates a paradigm into an actual research project. The book shows how theory informs methodological choices (the specifics of planning, implementing, and using evaluations). It offers balanced coverage of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. Useful pedagogical features include: *Examples of large- and small-scale evaluations from multiple disciplines. *Beginning-of-chapter reflection questions that set the stage for the material covered. *"Extending your thinking" questions and practical activities that help readers apply particular theoretical paradigms in their own evaluation projects. *Relevant Web links, including pathways to more details about sampling, data collection, and analysis. *Boxes offering a closer look at key evaluation concepts and additional studies. *Checklists for readers to determine if they have followed recommended practice. *A companion website with resources for further learning.

Download or read book Utilization Focused Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1997 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest edition of this bestselling book has been completely revised and updated to provide the most comprehensive review and integration ever done of the vast literature on evaluation use and practice.