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Evaluation Guidebook: Implications for a Quality Child Care System Evaluation and Development
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| Presenter(s):
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| Xuejin Lu,
Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County,
kim.lu@cscpbc.org
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| Lance Till,
Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County,
lance.till@cscpbc.org
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| Karen Brandi,
Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County,
karen.brandi@cscpbc.org
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| Jeff Goodman,
Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County,
jeff.goodman@cscpbc.org
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| Abstract:
This presentation will demonstrate how an evaluation guidebook was developed and used to guide the evaluation and management of a complex child care quality improvement system (QIS) in Palm Beach County. Guidebooks can be used as effective tools to steer evaluations, in addition to providing a central resource that programs can look to for development and alignment. The goals, nature, and evaluation of the QIS will be described, and the rationale for an evaluation guidebook to guide system development and evaluation will be highlighted. We will outline the development process and explain the contents of the guidebook, illustrating how it has been used throughout the evaluation process and for facilitating system change. We will also discuss the implication of the evaluation guidebook to the practice of system evaluation and development in the field of early care and education.
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Evaluating System Response in Complex Problem Domains: Integrating Social Network and Systems Change Approaches
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| Presenter(s):
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| Branda Nowell,
North Carolina State University,
branda_nowell@ncsu.edu
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| Abstract:
Increasingly, evaluators are being engaged in the formative and summative evaluation of systems change initiatives focused on improving upon the level of coordination amongst key organizations and agencies. The goals of these efforts focus on promoting synergistic outcomes and eliminating areas of destructive interference among those who share involvement in a common problem domain. Adopting a problem domain level of analysis, the focus of this paper is to present a framework for interorganizational systems assessment. This framework was developed based on applied systems thinking and social network principals with the ultimate goal of creating an evaluation technique for critically assessing coordination processes in the collective management of a given problem domain. A case example of its application in a project aimed at helping to improve coordination in the management and remediation of a polluted watershed will be presented. Implications for theory and practice will be discussed.
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Systematic Review Techniques as a Means of Taming “Wicked” Evaluations
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| Presenter(s):
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| Charles Naumer,
University of Washington,
naumer@u.washington.edu
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| Abstract:
The context for this paper is the effort of a research team at the University of Washington to define outcome measures for the work of community technology centers throughout the state of Washington. This paper considers the challenges of defining the scope and measures of an evaluation project in which there is a high degree of ambiguity among stakeholders. This type of evaluation project is defined in terms of Rittel and Weber’s classic description of “wicked” problems which are often used to describe complex policy issues.
Systematic reviews focus on methodologically rigorous methods of surveying the literature to identify and synthesize relevant research. The use of techniques associated with this process is explored as a means of addressing complexity, facilitating discussion among stakeholders and providing a framework for developing data collection tools. Theoretical foundations for this approach are informed by research from the field of systems science.
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