Conducting an Evaluation, A Research that really needs some answers

An Evaluation of a Programme

Alright, you have successfully been commissioned to conduct a research evaluation for an organization that has been for the past decade been implementing a programme. Unfortunately no evaluation has really been done to really see whether there are any significant results. Now, you are researcher and as a researcher you know the rules very well, whatever the situation you have to use conventional methods of research to pull this off. Lets say that this organization has been implementing a project or programme to deal with reducing child mortality by supplying necessary medicines to a clinic and child care services, how do you evaluate this programme. To start with, what exactly is an evaluation? What are we talking about here?

Conducting a Research that Kills, Making the Evaluation Real!

When given an assignment of such a nature, as a researcher with great credentials you should already know how much is being spent on you. We don't need to hid the figures do we? What are we talking about here $ 50,000 or $ 100,000 net? But you see to really get to understand the seriousness of this venture you really need to understand that there are alot of stakeholders seeking for answers...GOT IT!!! Now, if you are going to really have to successfully conduct this evaluation, you have to get back to the drawing board. You have to think big, you have to be real and understand what an Evaluation is.

An Evaluation is an in depth assessment that aims to give structured interpretation and give meaning to whatever results have been achieved by a programme (in this case the programme). In short, what stakeholders are really looking for is to understand what has been achieved over the past decade? how has the programme fared in reducing child mortality over the past decade? You as an researcher or an Evaluator should answer that question without any big problems. Now how do you exactly prepare for an evaluation given that this kind of research needs alot of concentration.

Preparing yourself for the Evaluation, be the Best Researcher

Here are a few steps you mustn't ever forget when preparing yourself for an Evaluation that will really speak volumes to all your listeners and stakeholders.

1) Reading literature: Before embarking on the research, you have to have background knowledge of the programme and what it aimed to achieve over the decade. What better way to do this by reading programme documents and other strategic plans that have been documented by the organizations. You should be able to ask for reports done by the organizations. While you do your personal reading be sure to read about work done by other researchers all over the world to do with this kind of programme. Don't forget to understand some of the challenges and opportunities faced by these past similar programmes. Be sure to read through the terms of reference again.

2) Interviews: You have to conduct interviews and this is really the most important thing among all the steps. As a researcher you are supposed to carefully select the people you will interview who will most likely be the programme staff, programme beneficiaries and other stakeholders as well. Make sure as a researcher or Evaluator to structure your questions properly in order to capture all the information you are looking for.

3) Reporting: After you have completed your literature review and interviews, you can now report all your findings to the stakeholders. As an Evaluator you should present your findings during a validation meeting which will validate the findings you collected. All stakeholders must be invited to comment on the powerpoint presentation after which you will also hand them the draft evaluation report. The final version of the Evaluation report should be sent after you recieve and document all the comments.