Abstract
Primer on Evaluation Methods, appearing here for the first time, will share this space with Research Agenda; each will appear three times per year in alternate issues of the Journal. The purpose of Primer on Evaluation Methods is to address selected evaluation topics from a practical, management-oriented perspective. Future Primer columns will focus on issues such as qualitative evaluation methods, reliability and validity, and reporting evaluation results. This series was originally published in a slightly revised version in a newsletter prepared by the Health Services Research Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek. Please forward any comments on this new section to: American Journal of Health Promotion, 746 Purdy Street, Birmingham, Michigan 48009.
Most people making their first attempt at program evaluation will ask the same general kinds of questions at the outset of their endeavor: Why evaluate? How much will it cost? Can I do it myself, or will consultants be required? How scientifically rigorous must it be? Should I have a control group? How big should the sample be? etc. All of these questions can be answered, but only after a set of important assumptions about the program being evaluated has been carefully specified. In most cases, all of these questions can be answered quite adequately by the person(s) asking them. Very little technical expertise is required. In this article we present an approach to the formulation of a general evaluation strategy, including a method for answering some of the questions that need to be answered first.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.