How to be Involved in Program Evaluation

The purpose of this book is to improve the direction and utility of the evaluation by program directors in charge, and the implementation of the evaluation by the evaluator. The authors contend that both of these goals can best be met by understanding each individual role.

How to be Involved in Program Evaluation:
· Provides a framework for understanding evaluation and the value of working within an evaluation model
· Provides an overview of the General Evaluation Model (GEM)
· Reviews the components of GEM from the viewpoint of the Evaluator and the Program Director? to emphasize the joint effort of the two persons
· Presents aspects of evaluation as a profession, including standards developed by professional organizations, desired traits of the Evaluator, and advantages and disadvantages of the Evaluator coming from outside the organization as compared to inside the organization
· Discusses the need for data collection instruments, and presents various examples, along with the advantages and disadvantages of the various evaluation instruments
· Discusses the crucial role of reporting evaluation results
· Discusses how the General Evaluation Model can be used to evaluate an entire school

This book will be a valuable reference to program directors and evaluators.

Keith McNeil has been teaching at New Mexico State University since 1989.

Isadore Newman has been a professor at the University of Akron since 1971.

Since 2003, Jim Steinhauser has been an evaluator for the El Paso Independent School District, focusing on the evaluation of the State Compensatory Education program and the evaluation of the Mathematics/Science Partnership between El Paso ISD and the University of Texas at El Paso.