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Evaluation Guides

A host of service providers, grantmakers, and other nonprofit organizations have produced general and specialized evaluation guides for practitioners. These guides provide background information and steps to implementing an evaluation plan. Depending on the user's preference and needs, s/he can read through a guide from front to back, or just reference particular sections. Evaluation guides are especially useful for walking practitioners through the process of designing tools and implementing an evaluation process. They tend to be more hands-on and applied than reports/research papers, but they offer more support and explanation, particularly with regard to assembling an integrated suite of tools, than individual instruments.

Among the organizations that have produced evaluations guides are:

Administration for Children & Families published The Program Manager's Guide to Evaluation.
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/core/pubs_reports/prog_mgr.html

Authenticity Consulting provides evaluation workshops and guidebooks for non-profit organizations, which includes the Basic Guide to Program Evaluation by Carter McNamara.
www.managementhelp.org/evaluatn/fnl_eval.htm

The Distance Learning Resource Network published a "sourcebook for evaluators" entitled Assessing the Impact of Technology in Teaching and Learning.
www.dlrn.org/star/TechSbk.pdf

Girls Incorporated has developed Assess for Success, a needs assessment and evaluation guide for its programs.
www.girlsinc.org/ic

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has produced two books for non-profits to assist in their evaluation efforts; one is the very comprehensive Evaluation Handbook, and the second is the Logic Model Development Guide.
www.wkkf.org/Programming/Overview.aspx?CID=281

The National Science Foundation/EHR published a User-Friendly Handbook for Mixed Method Evaluations, which features an overview of evaluation methods and information on designing and reporting mixed method evaluations.
www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf97153

United Way of America produced Measuring Program Outcomes: A Practical Approach, a "step-by-step manual for health, human services, and youth-and family-serving agencies" on evaluation techniques.
national.unitedway.org/outcomes/resources/mpo/contents.cfm