Decision Makers' Judgments

Abstract

Evaluators often assume that outcome studies assessing agency effectiveness should provide the most relevant data for decision makers who must form judgments about treatment in order to make policy, program, and clinical decisions. Yet evaluators have found that decision makers often fail to use results of evaluation studies. To shed light on the utilization problem, the research reported here was undertaken to learn about the criteria, information sources, and beliefs decision makers in the environment of nine drug treatment agencies used to form judgments about treatment programs before evaluative data concerning outcomes became available. The results showed that decision makers in different occupations tended to use similar information sources (primarily informal verbal exchanges) yet used different evaluative criteria to judge treatment programs. The impliclations of these results for the design of evaluation studies and utilization of evaluation results are discussed. ontributors to the professional literature of program evaluation have in recent years increasingly given attention to the problem of data utilization

Predictors of Principals’ Reliance on Formal and Informal Sources of Information

“…Reliance on evaluations can best be understood within the broader context of administrative information utilization (Bigelow, 1975;Cox, 1977;Hawkins, Roffman, & Osborne, 1978). Administrators rely on different kinds of information when making a decision.…”

“…Informal sources represent those using ad hoc (and perhaps, even haphazard) information collection methods, such as chance personal observations and conversations. Hawkins, Roffman, and Osborne (1978) concluded that reliance on informal sources of information such as personal contacts is common among decisionmakers. Mintzberg (1975) proposed that many problems in managerial work arise because managers prefer or rely on informal sources of information.…”

The Use of Knowledge and Health Policy Planning: Forms and Functions of the Relationships

“…Underutilization persists despite methodological rigor and valid findings showing differential program effectiveness. A number of reasons for underutilization have been suggested, including weaknesses in methodology, the quality, pertinence and timeliness of the information, the political context of evaluation research, organizational constraints, and the conflicting cultures of scientists and practitioners (Hawkins, et at., 1978).…”