We are Public Policy Professionals. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Program evaluation, as defined by the Australian Ministry of Finance is the systematic assessment of a program, or part of it,. Evaluation is not simply about assessing whether an initiative was a success or failure. Instead, evaluation is about creating the information and data about the initiative's success and why. Evaluation findings can lead to more effective and efficient program delivery.
Implementation of this Policy over time will build a public sector culture of continuous improvement and learning. While most people think about evaluation in the context of assessing programs and policies, building evaluation into operational processes can lead to better procurement decisions. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is in the process of reforming its procurement legislation and processes to allow for an assessment of value for money.
There are several different types of evaluations depending on what is being evaluated and the purpose of the evaluation. All types of evaluation can be generally classified into the broad categories of formative and summative evaluations. Formative evaluations are used primarily to provide information for initiative improvement by examining the delivery of the initiative, its implementation, procedures, personnel, etc.
Summative evaluations, in contrast, examine the initiative's outcomes and are used to provide information that will assist in making decisions regarding the initiative's adoption, continuation or expansion and can assist in judgments of the initiative's overall merit based on certain criteria.
Some more Comprehensive evaluations combine both process and outcome questions. Before a proper evaluation can take place it is often necessary to perform an evaluability assessment in order to assess the extent to which the initiative is ready to be evaluated and what type of evaluation would be most appropriate. The assessment aims to ascertain the needs, goals and objectives of the initiative and determine if a formal evaluation is warranted at this point in time or even whether the initiative is ready to be evaluated.
There are often several factors that prevent an initiative from being ready to be evaluated. An evaluability assessment will help bring these issues to light. The proper steps can then be taken so that a future evaluation becomes feasible. A more in-depth explanation and guide to completing an evaluability assessment can be found in the resource section at the end of this document.
The Policy on Evaluation requires that departments prepare annual or multi-year Departmental Evaluation Plans to identify priority evaluations and evaluation-related activities.
A specific type of evaluability assessment process used to support departmental risk-based assessment of evaluation priorities is contained in the Guide to Developing a Risk-based Departmental Evaluation Plan. A Needs Assessment can be useful for determining whether a problem or need exists within a community, organization or target group and then describing that problem.
What would you change in future courses? These are all important to consider when thinking about evaluating learning outcomes, and these are also guided by your aims and objectives and the overall outcomes you expect to achieve. How did participants find the practical arrangements and logistics for the activity? Were there adequate resources and how were these utilised? This information is an important addition to the outcome evaluation and can be used to determine whether the organisation of the activity, or its location etc.
Evaluation information can be used by a number of different people and organisations stakeholders involved in any given activity in a number of different ways. For example, in a Youth in Action activity, stakeholders could range from the European Commision, National Authorities and National Agencies, to trainers, participants and local communities.
Below are some examples on how the evaluation information is used:. Therefore, it is important that any evaluation tries to collect the data that is required by, credible and useful for each of the stakeholders involved in the activity. When you are working with those at community level and helping them to participate in evaluation, it is necessary to use words and meanings that are even more simple and clear than those given above.
One way that you can start to do this is by telling a story about other people's actual experience, such as the one below. In one country some community development workers compared evaluation to taking a bus journey along an unknown road.
While they could see through the glass windows they were happy because they could see that they were making progress. Then rain forced them to put wooden shutters over the windows and they could no longer assess their progress.
They knew they were moving forward but could not tell along which road, how fast, or even whether they were nearing their destination,. Evaluation is like looking to see where and how fast you are going, and then estimating when you are likely to reach your destination. So, from the answers that people gave it is clear that evaluation has been carried out mainly as a way of looking at: programme activities, human resources, material resources, information, facts and figures; in order to: monitor progress and effectiveness, consider costs and efficiency, show where changes were needed, and help to plan more effectively for the future.
However, there is also another group of reasons for evaluating, and these are a little different. Here are some of those reasons, which become clearer if we look at the answers that people have actually given. From this group of answers it is clear that evaluation has been carried out for another group of reasons. However, these reasons may not have been clear to all those who were actually involved in the evaluation.
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