Evaluability Assessment: Improving Evaluation Quality and Use

Evaluability assessment (EA) can lead to development of sound program theory, increased stakeholder involvement and empowerment, better understanding of program culture and context, enhanced collaboration and communication, process and findings use, and organizational learning and evaluation capacity building. Evaluability Assessment: Improving Evaluation Quality and Use, by Michael Trevisan and Tamara Walser, provides an up-to-date treatment of EA, clarifies what it actually is and how it can be used, demonstrates EA as an approach to evaluative inquiry with multidisciplinary and global appeal, and identifies and describes the purposes and benefits to using EA. Using case examples contributed by EA practitioners, the text illustrates important features of EA use, and showcases how EA is used in a variety of disciplines and evaluation contexts. This text is appropriate as an instructional text for graduate level evaluation courses and training, and as a resource for evaluation practitioners, policymakers, funding agencies, and professional training.

 

"The most impressive aspect of this book is that it positions EA as an approach that perfectly fits within the current philosophical views on program evaluation… The authors do a great job connecting these theories to practice, and provide good guidelines." ―Sebastian Galindo-Gonzalez, University of Florida

 

"This book is focused on one very important topic in the scope of program evaluation content.  It establishes the foundation for a variety of applications: impact assessment, program development, and formative evaluation. This text provides new insights and methods for conducting evaluability assessment." ―S. Kim MacGregor, Louisiana State University

 

"The book is written in a very readable style, is well organized and referenced. I like the inclusion of case studies, guidelines for actually doing EA, and the extensive discussion of its alignment with other models of evaluation process." ―Iris Smith, Emory University

Dr. Mike Trevisan has been conducting educational research and evaluation for 28 years. He is currently Dean of the College of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology at Washington State University where he has worked for 20 years. Dr. Trevisan is widely published in the fields of evaluation and assessment. Dr. Trevisan is Associate Director for the Learning, Performance Research Center at Washington State University. He has been Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on many grants and contracts that require evaluation, and has obtained more than $8 million in external funding. Dr. Trevisan has conducted numerous EAs and contributed to EAs as a consultant. He has taught courses in evaluation, research methods, measurement, and statistics. Dr. Trevisan obtained his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in measurement, statistics, and evaluation from the University of Washington in 1990.

Dr. Tamara Walser is Director of Assessment and Evaluation and Associate Professor of Educational Research and Leadership in the Watson College of Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Previously, Dr. Walser worked in non-profit and for-profit organizations as a program evaluator and assessment specialist; and as an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Washington State University. She has served as Principal Investigator, Co-Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Lead Evaluator on numerous grants and contracts focused on evaluation. She has authored/co-authored publications on evaluation and assessment, as well as evaluation guidebooks and resources; has presented on evaluation topics nationally and internationally; and is a former President of the North Carolina Association for Research in Education, a state affiliate of the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Walser has taught courses in program evaluation, assessment, research methods, and statistics. She obtained her Ph.D. in Research and Evaluation from Utah State University in 2000.