"Evaluation is not separate from, or added to, a project, but rather is part of it from the beginning. Planning, evaluation, and implementation are all parts of a whole, and they work best when they work together." -- National Science Foundation, 2002 User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation (PDF)

Many novice grant writers hit the evaluation section of their first proposal and flounder. Even more experienced grant writers can underestimate or misunderstand the purpose of evaluation and the role it plays in assessing impacts of a grant project.

What IS evaluation?

Simply put, evaluation is a systematic assessment of a project or program. Information is gathered to answer various questions:

• Is the project being implemented as designed?
• What strategies and activities are being implemented?
• What are the impacts of the project? Increased knowledge and skills? Changes in attitudes and behaviors? Changes in affected populations?
• Is the project meeting goals and objectives described in the proposal?
• If not, why, and is the evaluation plan designed to help guide adjustments to improve project operations?

Elements standard to most evaluations typically include a set of evaluation questions, instruments and methods, and type of data, data sources, and reports to be produced. Elements tailored to a project may include whether both formative and summative evaluations will be conducted (usually advisable), measurable outputs and/or outcomes, and what degree of change is expected.

What's the point?

Whether you're designing or conducting an evaluation, it's important to recognize the purposes it serves. The National Science Foundation gives two reasons for conducting an evaluation: gathering information to improve the project, and providing new, unanticipated, insights. The Kellogg Foundation says evaluation should collect and analyze information "for use in decision making." An evaluation can serve other functions, too: building capacity of project staff, keeping funding agencies informed, and even shaping policy.

Evaluation methods include both formative (aka process) and summative (aka outcome) evaluations, along with other methods such as experimental design (e.g., randomized treatment and control groups, case studies, etc.).

How can it help me?

While evaluation methods and gathering data are crucial, an evaluation is more than the sum of its parts. It should provide a view of the entire project -- whether from 30,000 or 300 feet -- that offers perspective and opportunity for continuous project improvement.

Your guide in all this is the evaluator, a "critical friend" who wants your project to be successful. Whether the role is played by in-house staff or an outside agency, the evaluator must maintain a degree of independence from your project to be able to probe for strengths and weaknesses. If weaknesses are spotted, the evaluator should alert project staff in a way that helps improve operations.

As a critical friend of the project, the evaluator is important to its success. A good evaluator can also help you get a handle on evaluation during the proposal development phase as well as project implementation phase.

For more on evaluations, download our white paper on the subject.

Judging the Benefits of Collaborations

Can a grant writer predict the effectiveness of a collaboration? Not really, according to the Center for Promise, the research arm of America's Promise Alliance. The Center examined research on community collaborations to benefit youth, and concluded that most studies have not examined effectiveness in a comprehensive way, pointing to a need for more accurate measures of success. The Center describes its preliminary analysis of the literature in a research brief that precedes a longer paper with a complete analysis.

Early Education Research

The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has released a new report on early childhood education research, a field that has lacked a strong research base. Synthesis of IES Research on Early Intervention and Early Childhood Education (download the PDF) describes lessons learned from grants the institute awarded from 2002 to 2010.  

The 77-page report examines nearly 50 research projects focusing on four areas of inquiry: early childhood classroom environments and instructional practices, education practices impacting academic and social outcomes, young children's skills and learning, and educators' professional development. The report provides a summary of findings in each area, as well as findings on such topics as effective curricula and learning of children at risk for disabilities.

Education Research on Twitter 

A number of agencies tweet about education research, education policy, postsecondary education, and more:

• @IESResearch - Institute of Education Sciences, research arm of the U.S. Department of Education
• @RuralEdCenter - National Center for Research on Rural Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• @caldercenter - National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research
• @CAPSEE - Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment