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Program Evaluation Glossary
"E"
- Effect Size
- The size of the relationship between two variables (particularly
between program variables and outcomes).
- Effectiveness
- Ability to achieve stated goals or objectives, judged in
terms of both output and impact.
- Efficiency
- The degree to which outputs are achieved in terms of productivity
and input (resources allocated). Efficiency is a measure of
performance in terms of which management may set objectives
and plan schedules and for which staff members may be held
accountable.
- Efficiency Assessment
- An evaluative study that answers questions about program costs in comparison to either the monetary value of their benefits or their effectiveness in terms of the changes they bring about in the social conditions they address.
- Emergent Design
- An implementation plan in which the specification of every step depends upon the results of previous steps, also known as cascading or rolling design.
- Empirical
- Relying upon or derived from observation or experiment.
- Empirical Research
- Research that uses data drawn from observation or experience.
- Empirical Validity
- Empirical evidence that an instrument measures what it has
been designed to measure.
- Empowerment Evaluation
- An approach to gathering, analyzing, and using data about a program and its outcome that actively involves key stakeholders in the community in all aspects of the evaluation process, and that promotes evaluation as a strategy for empowering communities to engage in system changes.
- Estimation Error
- The amount by which an estimate differs from a true value.
This error includes the error from all sources (for example,
sampling error and measurement error).
- Evaluability Assessment
- Negotiation and investigation undertaken jointly by the evaluator, the evaluation sponsor, and possibly other stakeholders to determine if a program meets the preconditions for evaluation and, if so, how the evaluation should be designed to ensure maximum utility.
- Evaluation
- Evaluation has several distinguishing characteristics
relating to focus, methodology, and function. Evaluation (1)
assesses the effectiveness of an ongoing program in achieving
its objectives, (2) relies on the standards of project design
to distinguish a program's effects from those of other forces,
and (3) aims at program improvement through a modification
of current operations.
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- Evaluation Plan
- A written document describing the overall approach or design
that will be used to guide an evaluation. It includes what
will be done, how it will be done, who will do it, when it
will done, and why the evaluation is being conducted.
- Evaluation Practice
- A practice or set of practices that consist mainly of management
information and data incorporated into regular program management
information systems to allow managers to monitor and assess
the progress being made in each program toward its goals and
objectives.
- Evaluation Team
- The individuals, such as the evaluation consultant and staff,
who participate in planning and conducting the evaluation.
Team members assist in developing the evaluation design, developing
data collection instruments, collecting data, analyzing data,
and writing the report.
- Executive Report
- An abbreviated report that has been tailored specifically to addresses the concerns and questions of a person whose function is to administer a program or project.
- Executive Summary
- A non-technical summary statement designed to provide a quick overview of the full-length report on which it is based.
- Ex-post Facto Design
- A research design in which all group selection, pretest data,
and posttest data are collected after completion of the treatment.
The evaluator is thus not involved in the selection or placement
of individuals into comparison or control groups. All evaluation
decisions are made retrospectively.
- Experimental Data
- Data produced by an experimental or quasi-experimental design.
- Experimental Design
- A research design in which the researcher has control over
the selection of participants in the study, and these participants
are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups.
- Experimental Group
- A group of individuals participating in the program activities
or receiving the program services being evaluated or studied.
Experimental groups (also known as treatment groups) are usually
compared to a control or comparison group.
- Experimental Mortality
- The loss of subjects from an experiment due to such factors
as illness, lack of interest, or refusal to participate. This
loss may effect the comparability of results between the experimental
and control groups.
- External Evaluation
- Collection, analysis, and interpretation of data conducted by an individual or organization outside of the organization being evaluated.
- Externalities
- Effects of a program that impose costs on persons or groups who are not targets.
- External Evaluator
- See outside evaluator.
- External Validity
- The extent to which a finding applies (or can be generalized)
to persons, objects, settings, or times other than those that
were the subject of study.
- External Validity Threats
- Factors that may reduce the transferability of a program's
findings to other groups or jurisdictions.
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