Evaluation. What associations does this word bring to mind? Do you see evaluation as an invaluable tool to improve your program? Or do you find it intimidating because you don't know much about it? Regardless of your perspective on evaluation, MEERA is here to help! The purpose of this introductory section is to provide you with some useful background information on evaluation.
Table of Contents
Evaluation is a process that critically examines a program. It involves collecting and analyzing information about a program’s activities, characteristics, and outcomes. Its purpose is to make judgments about a program, to improve its effectiveness, and/or to inform programming decisions (Patton, 1987).
Experts stress that evaluation can:
It is important to periodically assess and adapt your activities to ensure they are as effective as they can be. Evaluation can help you identify areas for improvement and ultimately help you realize your goals more efficiently. Additionally, when you share your results about what was more and less effective, you help advance environmental education.
Evaluation enables you to demonstrate your program’s success or progress. The information you collect allows you to better communicate your program's impact to others, which is critical for public relations, staff morale, and attracting and retaining support from current and potential funders.
Gus Medina, Project Manager, Environmental Education and Training Partnership
There are some situations where evaluation may not be a good idea
Evaluations fall into one of two broad categories: formative and summative. Formative evaluations are conducted during program development and implementation and are useful if you want direction on how to best achieve your goals or improve your program. Summative evaluations should be completed once your programs are well established and will tell you to what extent the program is achieving its goals.
Within the categories of formative and summative, there are different types of evaluation.
Which of these evaluations is most appropriate depends on the stage of your program:
| Type of Evaluation | Purpose |
| Formative | |
|---|---|
| 1. Needs Assessment | Determines who needs the program, how great the need is, and what can be done to best meet the need. An EE needs assessment can help determine what audiences are not currently served by programs and provide insight into what characteristics new programs should have to meet these audiences’ needs. |
Make evaluation part of your program; don’t tack it on at the end!
Before
Norland, E. (2004, Sept). From education theory.. to conservation practice Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Association for Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Pancer, s. M., and Westhues, A. (1989) "A developmental stage approach to program planning and evaluation." Evaluation Review (13): 56-77.
Rossi R H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman. H. E. (2004). Evaluation: a systematic approach Thousand Oaks. Call.: Sage Publications.
For additional information on the differences between outcomes and impacts, including lists of potential EE outcomes and impacts, see MEERA's Outcomes and Impacts page.
A well-planned and carefully executed evaluation will reap more benefits for all stakeholders than an evaluation that is thrown together hastily and retrospectively. Though you may feel that you lack the time, resources, and expertise to carry out an evaluation, learning about evaluation early-on and planning carefully will help you navigate the process.
MEERA provides suggestions for all phases of an evaluation. But before you start, it will help to review the following characteristics of a good evaluation (list adapted from resource formerly available through the University of Sussex, Teaching and Learning Development Unit Evaluation Guidelines and John W. Evans' Short Course on Evaluation Basics):
Your evaluation should be crafted to address the specific goals and objectives of your EE program. However, it is likely that other environmental educators have created and field-tested similar evaluation designs and instruments. Rather than starting from scratch, looking at what others have done can help you conduct a better evaluation. See MEERA’s searchable database of EE evaluations to get started.
It ensures that diverse viewpoints are taken into account and that results are as complete and unbiased as possible. Input should be sought from all of those involved and affected by the evaluation such as students, parents, teachers, program staff, or community members. One way to ensure your evaluation is inclusive is by following the practice of participatory evaluation.
Evaluation results are likely to suggest that your program has strengths as well as limitations. Your evaluation should not be a simple declaration of program success or failure. Evidence that your EE program is not achieving all of its ambitious objectives can be hard to swallow, but it can also help you learn where to best put your limited resources.
A good evaluation is one that is likely to be replicable, meaning that someone else should be able to conduct the same evaluation and get the same results. The higher the quality of your evaluation design, its data collection methods and its data analysis, the more accurate its conclusions and the more confident others will be in its findings.
Consider doing a “best practices” review of your program before proceeding with your evaluation.
Making evaluation an integral part of your program means evaluation is a part of everything you do. You design your program with evaluation in mind, collect data on an on-going basis, and use these data to continuously improve your program.
Developing and implementing such an evaluation system has many benefits including helping you to:
To build and support an evaluation system:
As you set goals, objectives, and a desired vision of the future for your program, identify ways to measure these goals and objectives and how you might collect, analyze, and use this information. This process will help ensure that your objectives are measurable and that you are collecting information that you will use. Strategic planning is also a good time to create a list of questions you would like your evaluation to answer.
(See Step 2) to make sure you are on track. Update these documents on a regular basis, adding new strategies, changing unsuccessful strategies, revising relationships in the model, and adding unforeseen impacts of an activity (EMI, 2004).
by rewarding participation in evaluation, offering evaluation capacity building opportunities, providing funding for evaluation, communicating a convincing and unified purpose for evaluation, and celebrating evaluation successes.
The following resource provides more depth on integrating evaluation into program planning:
Best Practices Guide to Program Evaluation for Aquatic Educators (.pdf)
Beginner Intermediate
Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation. (2006).
Chapter 2 of this guide, “Create a climate for evaluation,” gives advice on how to fully institutionalize evaluation into your organization. It describes features of an organizational culture, and explains how to build teamwork, administrative support and leadership for evaluation. It discusses the importance of developing organizational capacity for evaluation, linking evaluation to organizational planning and performance reviews, and unexpected benefits of evaluation to organizational culture.
If you want to learn more about how to institutionalize evaluation, check out the following resources on adaptive management. Adaptive management is an approach to conservation management that is based on learning from systematic, on-going monitoring and evaluation, and involves adapting and improving programs based on the findings from monitoring and evaluation.
EMI (Ecosystem Management Initiative). (2004). Measuring Progress: An Evaluation Guide for Ecosystem and Community-Based Projects. School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan. Downloaded September 20, 2006 from: www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/evaluation/templates.htm
Patton, M.Q. (1987). Qualitative Research Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers.
Thomson, G. & Hoffman, J. (2003). Measuring the success of EE programs. Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
