Comprehensive yet accessible, this book provides a practical introduction to the skills, attitudes, and methods required to assess the worth and value of human services offered in public and private organizations in a wide range of fields. Readers are introduced to the need for such activities, the methods for carrying out evaluations, and the essential steps in organizing findings into reports. The book focuses on smaller projects carried out by an internal evaluator (i.e., on the work of people who are closely associated with the service to be evaluated), and is designed to help program planners, developers, and evaluators to work with program staff members who might be threatened by program evaluation. Features case studies and short profiles of individual program evaluators engaged in conducting evaluations in private service agencies, foundations, universities, and federal, state, and local governments. Program Evaluation: An Overview. Planning an Evaluation. Selecting Criteria and Setting Standards. Developing Measures. Ethics in Program Evaluation. The Assessment of Need. Monitoring the Operation of Programs. Single Group, Nonexperimental Outcome Evaluations. Quasi-Experimental Approaches to Outcome Evaluation. Using Experiments to Evaluate Programs. Analysis of Costs and Outcomes. Qualitative Evaluation Methods. Evaluation Reports: Interpreting and Communicating Findings. How to Encourage Utilization. For Program Evaluators, Program Planners, Program Administrators, Public Administrators in all types of human services--Criminal Justice, Corrections, Public Health, Public Administration, Community Nursing, Educational Administration, Substance Abuse Program Administration, Social Work, etc.

**  Each chapter contains a Summary and Preview, Study Questions and Additional Resources

Ch. 1.  Program Evaluation: An Overview

Ch. 2.  Planning an Evaluation

Ch. 3.  Selecting Criteria and Setting Standards

Ch. 4.  Developing Measures

Ch. 5.  Ethics in Program Evaluation

Ch. 6.  The assessment of Need

Ch. 7.  Monitoring the Operation of Programs

Ch. 8.  Qualitative Evaluation Methods

Ch. 9.  Single-Group, Non-experimental Outcome

Ch. 10.  Quasi-Experimental Approaches

Ch. 11.  Using Experiments to Evaluate Programs

Ch. 12.  Analyses of Costs and Outcomes

Ch. 13.  Evaluation Reports:  Interpreting and Communicating Findings

Ch. 14.  How to Encourage Utilization

7 CASE STUDIES THROUGHOUT TEXT

Case Study 1:   Using Multiple Measures in and Evaluation of a Summer Community Program for Youth  (ch. 4)

Case Study 2:   Using Qualitative methods in and Evaluation of a University Library  (ch. 8)

Case Study 3:  A Pretest-Posttest Design to Evaluate a Peer-Based Program to Prevent Skin Cancer (ch. 9)

Case Study 4:  Nonequivalent Control Groups used to Evaluate and Employee Incentive Plan (ch. 10)

Case Study 5:  Teaching Doctors Communication Skills: an evaluation with Random Assignment and Pretests (ch. 11)

Case Study 6:  The Value of Providing Smoking Cessation Clinics for Employees on Company Time (ch. 12)

Case Study 7:  Evaluations of the Outcomes of Boot Camp Prisons: The Value of Finding No Differences Between Program and Comparison Groups (ch. 14)