Practical Program Evaluation

Investigation of the Impacts of the Leaning Community Program on Students’ Learning

“…Many scholars present different views about program theory and its elements, such as Chen (1990) points out that social science scholars typically define "theory" to explain and predict phenomena interrelated propositions, however, such a definition is mostly descriptive theories which analyze the event itself and focuses on describing or explaining the facts and relationships. However, a descriptive theory is not the only type of theory.…”

“…(c) answer the evaluation questions referring to evaluation based on collected data, explain the causal linkages between theoretical constructs, including the direction and strength of the relationship between differences, the extent of regulating relations among other constructs such as, to respond to the concerns of stakeholders. Chen (1990) expresses six basic types of PTDE including normative treatment evaluation, normative implementation environment evaluation, normative outcome evaluation, impact evaluation, intervening mechanism evaluation, and generalization evaluation described below: (a) normative treatment evaluation concerns the issues about intervention in this field of conceptualization and design, measurement of effective intervention in the field situation, assessment of the consistency between design and actual implementation. The specific evaluation questions might include the intervention of nature, element, elements of the organization and measurement.…”

“…Simply stated, theory-driven program evaluation is a comprehensive approach which involves three general steps (Donaldson, 2003(Donaldson, , 2007: developing program theory, formulating and prioritizing evaluation questions, and answering evaluation questions. Six basic types of theory-driven evaluation (Chen, 1990) included normative treatment evaluation, normative implementation environment evaluation, normative outcome evaluation, impact evaluation, intervening mechanism evaluation, and generalization evaluation.…”

“…The program is designed to achieve the desired goal activities, these activities are planned and organized activities, not arbitrary action, expected to have an impact on participants (Chen, 1990;Royse, Thyer, Padgett, & Logam, 2006). Program evaluation is that an evaluator systematically collects and analyzes data about the program, as a basis for judging value or the advantages and disadvantages of the program.…”

Involving Roma parents: analysing the good practice of a primary school in Ghent

“…(Pawson and Tilley 1997;Weiss 1997). Theory-driven evaluators hold that for every intervention, a set of theoretical assumptions (program theories) exist about how the intervention will work out in reality, against which the illumination of cause and effect can be structured (Chen 2005). It is the evaluator's task to make explicit these theoretical assumptions and to put them to the test by focusing on contextual and intervening factors that contribute to the success or failure of the intervention.…”