Formulating Evaluation Questions

06/21/2016

Formulating Evaluation Questions

Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.
Dr. Mae Jemison, first African-American female astronaut

In her article "Program Evaluation: How to Ask the Right Questions," in the Exchange Essentials article collection, Measuring Program Quality and Staff Performance, Marjorie Kostelnik provides these (summarized) guidelines for writing credible evaluation questions for evaluating your program:

Make sure you have a comprehensive understanding of the program's goals, activities, and context before formulating your questions.
Identify several evaluation questions related to all five program dimensions — effort, performance, process, adequacy, and efficiency.
Avoid mistaking effort for performance or adequacy.
Do not overlook the process dimension. Because effort, performance, and adequacy questions often have easily quantifiable answers, it is tempting to focus on these dimensions to the exclusion of process. Yet knowing to what extent program activities are implemented as planned, as well as what changes are made and why, sheds light on how effort and performance are related.
Address performance and adequacy questions prior to concentrating on those related to efficiency.
Phrase each evaluation question as a specific item to be measured.

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