Our Evaluation Approach

The Research and Evaluation Bureau develops and implements high-quality program evaluations for clients in education, health and human services, specializing in both formative and summative evaluations.

We define evaluation as the systematic and rigorous process for collecting, analyzing and using information to answer questions relative to a program's quality, usefulness, importance and fairness.

Reasons to Conduct Evaluations

Five Reasons to Conduct Program Evaluations

  1. To find out "what works" and "what doesn't work"
  2. To showcase the effectiveness of your program to the community, stakeholders and funders
  3. To improve your program's practices
  4. To increase your program's capacity to plan for the future
  5. To build knowledge for the program field
Evaluation Frameworks

The Research and Evaluation Bureau utilizes the following evaluation frameworks:

  • Objectives-Based: Have the program's objectives been achieved?
  • Improvement and Accountability Oriented: How can the program be improved? Has the program met the funders' standards and requirements?
  • Utilizations-Focused: How can evaluation findings be used to facilitate program decision-making?
Evaluation Types

Program Evaluation comes in many formats, most notably as formative and/or summative evaluations.

Formative and summative evaluations differ regarding evaluation goals and associated evaluation questions.

View the evaluation types graphic and printable PDF here.

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