A Comparison of Participant and Practitioner Beliefs About Evaluation

The move to build capacity for internal evaluation is a common organizational theme in social service delivery, and in many settings, the evaluator is also the practitioner who delivers the service. The goal of the present study was to extend our limited knowledge of practitioner evaluation. Specifically, the authors examined practitioner concerns about administering pretest and posttest evaluations within the context of a multisite 7-week family strengthening program and compared those concerns with self-reported attitudes of the parents who completed evaluations. The authors found that program participants (n = 105) were significantly less likely to find the evaluation process intrusive, and more likely to hold positive beliefs about the evaluation process, than practitioners (n = 140) expected. Results of the study may address a potential barrier to effective practitioner evaluation-the belief that having to administer evaluations interferes with establishing a good relationship with program participants.