The initiation of public discourse before positions have hardened and a crisis has emerged. In the past the impact on participants in public policy education has been reported more frequently than impact on public issues or on the policy-making process. Future projects should give more emphasis on assessing issues and process impacts. A common approach to evaluation of these projects is the case study method. These include site visits, interviews with project staff, coalition members, participants, observation of planning meetings and educational activities, and reviews of proposals, and annual reports.
Studies show that there is limited evidence of attention to evaluation of public policy issues.
None of these studies shown a serious effort to evaluate impacts of these programs.