EVALUATION FOR THEREAL WORLD

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Evaluation in the political and academic worlds

The emergence of evaluation

What do we mean by the ‘real world’?

Evaluation in the political context

The development of evaluation

Evaluation in the academic context

Concluding comment

2. What is meant by ‘evaluation’?

Measurement of performance

The politics of evaluation

The policy-making process and evaluation

Forms of evaluation

Concluding comment

3. Designing evaluations

Methodological issues and the nature of evidence

Evaluation frameworks

Concluding comment

4. Selecting evaluation criteria

Common evaluation criteria

The story becomes further complicated

Concluding comment

5. Developments in economic evaluation

Introduction

The need for economic evaluation

The notion of cost

Measuring and valuing effects: outcomes and impacts

Addressing the challenges

Importance and significance of whole systems frameworks

System deficiencies within complex systems and their effect on the evaluation process

Economics and evidence-based policy

Developing a research agenda

Concluding note

6. The impact of evaluation on decision making

Impact theory

Impact assessment

The utilisation of evaluation research findings

Evaluation and decision making: facts or assumptions?

The impact of evaluation on decision making: what do we know?

Concluding note

7. The future for evaluation

Systematic reviews

Meta-analysis

Meta-evaluation

Meta-evaluation of single evaluations and sets of studies

The future of meta-evaluation

A return to the experimental design?

Evaluating ‘process’

In search of theory

Where is ‘policy evaluation’?

Concluding comment

8. Concluding thoughts

Locating evaluation in the real world

Index