Program Evaluation: Alternative Approaches and Practical Guidelines

This book has been instrumental in helping me evaluate a non-profit's program. Good overview of evaluation.

If you're new to the field then Program Evaluation provides a framework which makes sense of the various approaches. The authors have an easy style, sparing the reader from unnecessary jargon where they can. The introductory chapters provide a brief philosophical and ideological background to alternative approaches to evaluation. I came across this text during an introductory course in Instructional Design so it helped to place evaluation with what I had already covered on learning theory.

This book was easy to read and gave excellent examples and case studies. it was short and to the point and didn't drag on an idea. It was also informative in that it gave you when it was the author's bias or actual studied facts.

This book is used as a text book in my graduate class on evaluation in Instructional Technology. The book is clear, easy to understand, thorough and a good "primer" on evaluation.

This text surveys evaluation theory and practice in a manner that is easy to understand and teach. It's appropriate for undergraduate or graduate work in performance evaluation. The authors do an excellent job of reviewing the history and key literature. They also briefly explain popular methodologies and discuss different approaches, such as objective and holistic. The book includes case study material that highlights processes, advantages, drawbacks, and potential problems of evaluation efforts. The authors avoid consulting hype and focus on building the evaluation body of knowledge. An update with Fitzpatrick listed as the first author is now available and also is excellent.