Performance Evaluation: Proven Approaches for Improving Program and Organizational Performance

DEFINING REQUIRED DATA FROM PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

A fundamental source for deriving useful evaluation questions is a list of performance objectives. These objectives should have been the product of a needs assessment process in which each need identified and selected for reduction was clearly stated as a performance objective. Performance objectives should include who or what entity is to be responsible for the accomplishment, the accomplishment to be observed, what measurable criteria would be used to determine whether the result was accomplished satisfactorily, and the conditions under which this result would be acceptable (Mager, 1997). These objectives simply state where you are headed and how to tell when you have arrived.

Some evaluators, ...