Policy Evaluation

This chapter discusses the purpose of policy evaluation and the skills needed to conduct a good evaluation and examines the types and methods of evaluation. Evaluation occurs for several reasons. According to Carol Weiss, these purposes can be divided into two general categories: overt and covert purposes. Covert evaluation is often used to protect agencies from destructive “political storms.” Covert evaluation is conducted for at least three reasons: postponement, ducking responsibility, and window dressing. Internal policy evaluators are individuals or teams drawn from an agency’s own personnel. Informal evaluations are usually conducted by internal evaluators. Formal evaluations usually require a significant time commitment by evaluators and a substantial financial commitment on the part of a policy-implementing agency. External evaluators are individuals or teams drawn from professional evaluation organizations, either for-profit private firms or not-for-profit organizations such as a research department in a public university. This chapter introduces students to Bardach’s eightfold path.