It focuses on ways of improving and enhancing programs. A summative evaluation is aimed at determining the effectiveness of a program and is helpful in making decisions about terminating, maintaining or extending it. Dr. Warren also described the difference between participatory and independent evaluation. In an independent evaluation, the evaluator acts as a disinterested third party. Dr. Warren continued by describing the difference between quantitative and qualitative evaluation.
Quantitative evaluation is what most people are familiar with.
The tools include surveys, questionnaires, inventories things that you can count. So, for example, with quantitative evaluation, you might be able to say how many students participated in a particular program. And how were increases in reading scores related to time spent in the program, or to the number of hours of staff development received. Qualitative evaluation tools consist of interviews, observations, and focus groups. They tend to yield a lot of verbal data.