Evaluating afterschool programs

Well-implemented afterschool programs can promote a range of positive learning and developmental outcomes. However, not all research and evaluation studies have shown the benefits of participation, in part because programs and their evaluation were out of sync. This chapter provides practical guidance on how to foster that alignment between program and evaluation design. It begins with a discussion of why afterschool programs should develop and use a theory of change to guide program development, implementation, and evaluation. It then describes how to develop a logic model to depict program theory. It concludes with an overview of an approach to evaluation that ensures programs use evaluation information to improve and refine programming prior to using information for accountability purposes.