Program Evaluation The Essence of Social Work Research

A Typology of Evaluation  Formative and Summative  Program improvement and program evaluation  In-house and external  Agendas: the political nature of program evaluation

Assessment Methodology  What is the unit of analysis?  What is the dependent variable? Benchmark Goal attainment Significant change Cost effectiveness Cost benefit

Methods, continued  Experimental or quasi-experimental  Case study  Qualitative and quantitative – the false dichotomy

Class Exercise  Get into four groups  Consider a social service program you are associated with  Outline an evaluation strategy  Identify the threats to validity of findings

Other Class Business  Formative evaluation of course  Single system design How are you doing? Creating Graphs in Word  Review homework assignment