An Overview of Evaluation Strategies and Procedures

T H E PURPOSE of this paper is to provide a detailed introduction to the variety of purposes for which evaluation research may be used and to the range of methods that are currently employed in the practice of that field. Specific examples are given wherever appropriate to provide concrete illustrations of both the goals of evaluation researchers and the methods used. While the coverage of this paper is intended to be comprehensive in the sense of describing major uses of evaluation research, it cannot even pretend to be encyclopedic. The reader interested in pursuing any of the topics discussed in this paper is provided with references to more detailed discussions. In addition, there are several general references that survey the field of evaluation in a more detailed fashion (Suchman 1967; Weiss 1972; Cronbach 1980; Rossi, Freeman, and Wright 1979; Guttentag and Struening 1975).