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Evaluating multilevel programs
Author(s) -
King Nicelma J.,
Cooksy Leslie J.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
new directions for evaluation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.374
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1534-875X
pISSN - 1097-6736
DOI - 10.1002/ev.274
Subject(s) - value (mathematics) , computer science , extension (predicate logic) , intervention (counseling) , state (computer science) , management science , psychology , engineering , machine learning , psychiatry , programming language , algorithm
Multilevel programs—that is, programs with multiple levels of administration, funding, and implementation—present dynamic and challenging environments for the conduct and use of evaluation. The challenges include questions, priorities, audiences, and purposes that vary at each level. This chapter discusses the challenges as well as the opportunities for increasing the value of evaluation at the federal, state, and local levels. Five areas of information are used as a framework for the discussion: (1) Who came? (2) Who cares? (3) What was the intervention? (4) What changed, and what difference did it make? (5) How much did it cost? Using the Cooperative Extension System and other cases as illustrations, the authors describe the relative emphases given to these questions at the different levels, the motivations for those emphases, and the opportunities evaluators can take to make multilevel evaluations useful to audiences at all levels. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.