Increasingly, donors of all types—whether multinational aid agencies like the IMF or philanthropic organizations—are requiring evaluations of the programs they support to ensure accountability. Program evaluation involves the use of science-based qualitative and quantitative techniques to assess achievements. Because of the wide variety of nonprofit programs—which range across fields as diverse as education to air quality, and attempt interventions as different as improving women’s health to reducing school violence—an immense array of data collection and analytical techniques are available to aid evaluators in their efforts to determine if and how well the programs work. This class will emphasize performance measurement and data analysis, along with basic program evaluation methodologies, tools and techniques. Classes will focus on actual practice—exercises and assignments will include logic model formulation, evaluation question development, selecting relevant indicators for investigation, data collection methods, and data display and reporting methods.
This class is cross-listed with MAN and SW. LBJ is the home department.