Program Evaluation: A Primer for Effectiveness, Quality, and Value

This timely, unique, and insightful book provides students and practitioners with the tools and skills needed to evaluate social and policy programs across a range of disciplines―from public health to social work to education―enabling the allocation of scarce human and financial resources to advance the health and well-being of individuals and populations.

The chapters are organized according to the main tasks involved in conducting an evaluation to produce unbiased evidence of program effectiveness, quality, and value. The chapters include methods for selecting and justifying evaluation questions or hypotheses, designing evaluations, sampling participants, selecting information sources, and ensuring reliable and valid measurement. The final section of the book is focused around managing and analyzing data and transparently reporting the results in written and oral form. The book features international case studies throughout, covers quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches, and is also informed by new online methods developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the book’s unique features is a focus on international standards for conducting ethical evaluations and avoiding research misconduct.

Also featuring checklists, example forms, and summaries of the key ideas and topics, this very practical book is essential reading for students in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, and will be a key resource for professionals in the field.

Arlene Fink, Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She is an expert in program evaluation, survey research, and research methodology found at the intersection of public health and medicine. She has conducted and advised on more than 40 program evaluations in numerous fields from education to medicine and has lectured nationally and internationally. Dr. Fink is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed articles and ten textbooks.