Utilization-focused evaluation
Subtitle: the new century text
By: author, Michael Quinn Patton.
Edition: 3rd ed.
Publisher: Sage Publications
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Thousand Oaks, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 431
Subjects: Evaluation research (Social action programs) -- United States.
Description: Can evaluation be used to improve programs? Can it contribute to program effectiveness? Do evaluators bear any responsibility for evaluation use and program improvement? This skillfully honed revision by master storyteller and evaluator, Michael Quinn Patton, answers these questions and provides the most comprehensive review and integration ever done of the vast literature on evaluation use and practice.

Entirely rewritten, this edition offers readers a full-fledged evaluation text from identifying primary users of an evaluation to focusing the evaluation, making methods decisions, analyzing data, and presenting findings.

Both practical and theoretical, Utilization-Focused Evaluation: The New Century Text, Third Edition tells how to conduct program evaluations and why to conduct them in the manner prescribed. Each chapter contains a review of the relevant literature and actual case examples to illustrate major points.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Toward more useful evaluations. Evaluation use : both challenge and mandate; title: What is utilization-focused evaluation? How do you get started?; title: Fostering intended use by intended users : the personal factor; title: Intended uses of findings; title: Intended process uses : impacts of evaluation, thinking and experiences; title: Focusing evaluations : choices, options and decisions. Being active-reactive-adaptive : evaluator roles, situational responsiveness, and strategic, contingency thinking; title: Beyond the goals. Clarification game : focusing on outcomes; title: Focusing an evaluation : alternatives to goals-based evaluation; title: Implementation evaluation. What happened in the program?; title: The program's theory of action : conceptualizing casual linkages; title: Appropriate methods. Evaluations worth using : utilization-focused, methods decisions; title: The paradigms debate and a utilitarian synthesis; title: The meanings of evaluation data : analysis, interpretation, judgment, and reporting; title: Realities and practicalities of utilization-focused evaluation. Power, politics, and ethics; title: Utilization-focused evaluation : process and premises.