Browsing by Subject "Evaluation capacity building"

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    A retrospective case study of long-term evaluation capacity building at neighborhood house
    (2013-09) Anderson, Kirsten Lynn
    This thesis provides a case study of how evaluation capacity has been built at one mid-size social service non-profit organization over the last eleven years. Through reviewing documents and conducting interviews with current and past staff of Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author determined the facilitators and barriers to successful evaluation capacity building as well as the indicators and outcomes of successful ECB work in this context. The thesis presents a model, in logic model format, for how ECB has worked at Neighborhood House. The lessons learned over eleven years of sustained ECB work should prove useful to evaluators and ECB practitioners doing similar work.
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    Understanding Evaluation's Influence on Stakeholders' Attitudes and Actions at a Social Services Organization
    (2021-06) Anderson, Lindsay
    Research and discussions of evaluation use have a long history in the field of evaluation. Recently, discussions of evaluation use have expanded to include the concept of evaluation influence in an attempt to better understand the impact of evaluation through a variety of approaches. Much of the existing research on evaluation use focuses on how and under what conditions evaluations are used by stakeholders. However, to date, limited research on evaluation influence exists and less is known about the specific ways in which evaluation may influence stakeholders’ attitudes and actions. This study focused on building an understanding of how stakeholder attitudes and actions towards evaluation change as a result of being involved in an evaluation process. An exploratory qualitative approach and case study design was used. The case was a single social services agency. An evaluation of the social service agency’s employment program took place. Participants involved in the study were interviewed before and after the evaluation took place to better understand how they were using evaluation and their attitudes towards evaluation. This study found evaluation influenced stakeholders in multiple ways at the individual, interpersonal, and collective levels. The research demonstrated 1) people recognize the value of evaluation, but in different ways; 2) evaluation is more than just about the results, the process matters; 3) evaluation influences participants at multiple levels of an organization; 4) participating in an evaluation does influence stakeholders’ attitudes towards evaluation in positive ways; 5) evaluation is important in facilitating communication among key stakeholders; and 6) evaluation has the potential to influence future evaluation activities.