8

Is It Evaluation or Is It Research?

SCENARIO EIGHT

During the last conversation between the evaluation consultant, Judy Hallowell, and the Grandview staff, Luis asked, “Well, how do we do this research?” Judy surprised many in the group by asking if they thought they were going to be involved in research or in evaluation. Especially after their long discussion about “number crunching,” a number of staff members said, “Well, of course we are doing research.” Others asked, “How do we really know if we're doing research or evaluation?” Actually, these questions gave Judy the perfect opportunity to make some important distinctions between evaluation and research.

Once again, she asked the committee to form small working and discussion groups. ...

Get The ABCs of Evaluation: Timeless Techniques for Program and Project Managers, Third Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.