My name is Hsin-Ling (Sonya) Hung, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota (UND) and Program Co-chair for the Needs Assessment TIG. Prior to UND, I was an evaluator at the University of Cincinnati’s Evaluation Services Center.
As an academic, when encountering a new topic or term not in my area of focus, I like to dig into the literature first. Based on what I found, evaluability assessment (EA) is known as an exploratory evaluation and accountability procedure. EA is generally considered as pre-evaluation activity. EA can be used for identifying problems for program planning with feasibility in mind and may lead to changes in program activities and objectives to improve program performance.
According to the above, I wonder how many accountability motivated programs, particularly those funded by public sectors, would conduct EA for pilot programs before implementing policy across state or nation. I also ponder whether it is possible to do EA for those time restrictive education programs funded through competition.
I provide some resources that can be accessed online for those who are new to EA to grasp a picture for practice.
Rad Resources:
Evaluability assessment: a primer. This article published in an online journal Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation by Trevisan and Huang in 2003 providing a brief introduction of the EA background, rationale, method, process, and an example.
Planning evaluability assessment: A synthesis of the literature with recommendations for international development program. This is a working paper by Rick Davies (2013) for United Kingdom’s Government, Department for international development (DFID).
A Bibliography on Evaluability Assessment. This bibliography was generated in 2012 by Rick Davies as part of the process of developing the aforementioned paper.
Guidelines for Preparing an Evaluation Assessment. This is a brief guideline developed by the Canadian International Development Research Center’s (IDRC) Evaluation Unit in 1996.
Guidance Note on Carrying Out an Evaluability Assessment. This document is prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women’s Evaluation Unit in 2009. A checklist is included in the document.
Evaluability assessment template. This template is created by the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). It takes the user through a step by step process of evaluability assessment.
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