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Non-formal educator use of evaluation results
Sarah Baughman1, Heather H Boyd, Nancy K Franz
1Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0452, USA. baughman@vt.edu
Evaluation and Program Planning
|March 14, 2012
Summary
Field-based Extension educators often use program evaluation results for accountability and learning, rather than direct program improvement. This highlights a need to clarify roles for better evaluation impact in educational organizations.
Area of Science:
- Program evaluation
- Educational research
- Organizational studies
Background:
- Accountability demands drive program evaluation in educational settings.
- Cooperative Extension educators frequently conduct evaluations for non-formal programs.
- Research on evaluation use has largely overlooked program staff conducting their own evaluations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how field-based Extension educators utilize results from program evaluations they conducted.
- To explore instrumental, conceptual, persuasive, and process uses of evaluation findings by program staff.
Main Methods:
- Survey of field-based Extension educators across four Extension services.
- Measurement and exploration of four types of evaluation use (instrumental, conceptual, persuasive, process).
Main Results:
- Few programmatic changes resulted from evaluation findings among surveyed educators.
- Educators primarily used evaluation results for persuasion and learning through the process.
- Evaluation use was predominantly driven by accountability, with limited program improvement.
Conclusions:
- Clarifying accountability and program improvement roles is crucial for optimizing evaluation efforts in complex organizations.
- Evaluation capacity building may enhance the instrumental use of evaluations by program staff.
- Current evaluation practices in this context prioritize accountability over direct program enhancement.
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