Hello from snowy Boston! I’m Leslie Goodyear, one of the co-leaders of the Qualitative Methods TIG, and a co-editor, with Jennifer Jewiss, Janet Usinger and Eric Barela, of a new book about qualitative evaluation called Qualitative Inquiry in Evaluation: From Theory to Practice (2014, Jossey-Bass). When I was a new evaluator, I had a major …
Hi, I’m Janet Usinger, another of the co-leaders of the Qualitative Methods TIG, and a co-editor with Leslie Goodyear, Jennifer Jewiss, and Eric Barela of a new book about qualitative evaluation called Qualitative Inquiry in Evaluation: From Theory to Practice (2014, Jossey-Bass). The process of interviewing participants in an evaluation shares a few characteristics with …
QUAL Eval Week: Janet Usinger on Interviewing People Who are Challenging Read More »
My name is Michael Quinn Patton and I am an independent evaluation consultant. Development of more-nuanced and targeted purposeful sampling strategies has increased the utility of qualitative evaluation methods over the last decade. In the end, whatever conclusions we draw and judgments we make depend on what we have sampled. Hot Tip: Make your qualitative sampling strategic and …
QUAL Eval Week: Michael Quinn Patton on Purposeful Qualitative Sampling Read More »
Hi again – Leslie Goodyear, Jennifer Jewiss, Janet Usinger, and Eric Barela, the co-leaders of the AEA Qualitative Methods TIG, back with another lesson we learned as we co-edited a book that explores how qualitative inquiry and evaluation fit together. Our last blog focused on the five elements of quality in qualitative evaluation. Underpinning these …
My name is Ann Zukoski and I am a Senior Research Associate at Rainbow Research, Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded as a nonprofit organization in 1974, Rainbow Research’s mission is to improve the effectiveness of socially-concerned organizations through capacity building, research, and evaluation. Projects range in scale from one-time program evaluations to multi-year, multi-site research …
Best of aea365 week: Ann Zukoski on Participatory Evaluation Approaches Read More »
Hey there. My name is Kath McNiff and I’m an online community manager at QSR International (the makers of NVivo). Lessons Learned: We’re heading into a brand new year of evaluation (actually, THE year of evaluation). Oh, the joys of a clean slate! A chance to right the wrongs, sharpen the tools, clear the decks …
Kath McNiff on Tools, Tips and Other New Year’s Resolutions Read More »
Hello, I’m Norma Martinez-Rubin, a public health practitioner, program evaluator, and occasional trainer. Work projects that integrate opportunities to learn about the people for whom they are designed excite me. Hence, I find qualitative inquiry quite fitting. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews have been primary data-collection methods on evaluation studies I’ve led, guided, or to …
Greetings! I’m Katrina Bledsoe and I’m a research director at the Missouri-based DeBruce Foundation. The Foundation is currently working on starting a research institute that addresses issues related to education, community, and economic development. In my years of working with and in communities, I’ve found that qualitative inquiry is a foundational tool in being able …
QUAL Eval Week: Katrina Bledsoe on Qualitative Inquiry and Theory-driven Evaluation Read More »
Hi. I am George Grob, an evaluation consultant focusing on policy development and advocacy. During 40 years of Federal service, mostly in the Department of Health and Health and Human Services), I learned that policy makers (Members of Congress and high level executives) are very interested in evaluations. They especially like observations, real life stories, …
QUAL Eval Week: George Grob on Qualitative Evaluation for Policy Makers Read More »
My name is Michael Quinn Patton and I am an independent evaluation consultant. That means I make my living meeting my clients’ information needs. That’s how I came to engage in Utilization-Focused Evaluation. Utilization-focused evaluation does not depend on or advocate any particular evaluation content, model, method, theory, or even use. Rather, it is a …
