Book Review: Evaluation Essentials: From A to Z

Convincing partners of the merits of M&E [Monitoring & Evaluation], and obtaining their support in accessing locations and individuals can be challenging and our success varies from location to location.

(Alison Barrett, British Council, New Delhi, India, personal communication, February 5, 2015, emphasis added)

Such are the realities of field-based evaluation practice in the international development context. We are now in 2015 the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear), with many planned events happening across the globe throughout the year. The whole idea about the initiative is “to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels through 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation” (EvalPartners, 2015). At the Third Annual Conference on National Evaluation Capacities (held in Brazil in 2013), EvalPartners, a global movement to strengthen national evaluation capacities, designated 2015 as EvalYear. A culminating activity for EvalYear will take place in November in Kathmandu, in part, in the Nepalese halls of parliament. Why? I would suggest that “convincing partners of the merits of M&E” is likely a good part of the rationale, and indeed, it is likely EvalPartner’s impetus for sponsoring and promoting EvalYear. It may also be, I would argue, a significant element of Marvin Alkin’s motivation to publish in 2011 Evaluation Essentials.

Allow me to cut to the chase. I am recommending Evaluation Essentials as an important addition to the library of anyone interested in evaluation as a domain of inquiry and field of professional practice. I have been using it extensively and regularly in my graduate-level course on “program evaluation methods and practice” since 2011. In that same year, I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 copies of the book shipped to India where I was involved with colleagues in a significant and protracted evaluation capacity building (ECB) intervention. As it turns out, at this writing, 4 years later, I am in New Delhi working on the implementation of a nationwide evaluation of secondary teacher in-service training. Several of the members of our rather sizable evaluation team participated as learners in the aforementioned ECB initiative. I will ask them whether they brought their copy of Evaluation Essentials. I brought mine.

Alkin’s book, I would say, is among the most intellectually accessible books in our field. It is written entirely (from A to Z) in a conversational tone, beginning with a preamble where Alkin introduces himself and then asks the reader, “Who are you?” Of course, he answers his own question by expounding on the range of people who might fit the bill as “Reader”: a program administrator taking an introductory course on evaluation, a member of a program staff reading at the suggestion of an evaluator, a novice evaluator, or a doctoral student studying an evaluation course. Regardless, as Alkin suggests, the book is “an accessible introduction to the field, supplemented by another text or by a variety of original source readings creatively selected by your instructor” (p. viii). Hey, that last part sounds like my course! That is precisely the way I have used Evaluation Essentials.

Alkin begins with a short overview of the book and its structure, including a very helpful chart that cross-references the concepts being addressed with stages of evaluation planning and the section in which the concept appears. The book is divided into 26 “sections” (A to Z) each titled with a question. Some examples are as follows:

Section A: What is Evaluation?

At least three things can be said about this list: (i) it is comprehensive, entirely living up to the A to Z promise; (ii) it is heavily grounded in practical and theoretical wisdom about how to do evaluations that will be useful and used; and (iii) it is interrupted immediately following Section B by a “time-out” where Alkin presents a case study scenario—the Rural Parents Support Program—a fictionalized composite arising from many of his own experiences. The case scenario provides fodder for knowledge consolidation and the application of principles and concepts learned throughout the book.

On (i) above, I will say that the content “fits like a glove” with my Methods and Practice course because it follows evaluation methodology from start (planning and conceptualizing) to finish (reporting and follow-up). Importantly, it honors professional standards of evaluation practice, lays out practical strategies for managing evaluations, and points the reader toward considerations for ongoing learning. About (ii), I am no stranger to extolling principles and strategies to enhance the use of evaluation and I would suggest that such are among the main “take-aways” for students of my course. Evaluation Essentials is a natural fit in that respect. Finally, regarding (iii) above, Alkin’s strategy for knowledge consolidation through case-level application is undeniably aligned with sound principles of adult education and solid instructional practice. In my own experience, I’ve not relied so much on that aspect of the book because I have developed my own set of consolidation activities over the years, some of them drawing from other supplementary resources. But a close colleague who uses the book reports that his students have used its case study element with some success.

I repeatedly get compliments from students about the accessible nature of the content in Evaluation Essentials, as does my colleague. In my course, it should be understood, usually less than half of the students are interested in evaluation as a career path or domain of inquiry, and the others select the course from a menu of options for their MEd or other programs. Often such students are categorically unaware that evaluation as a field even exists. How nicely Evaluation Essentials helps them to develop a holistic understanding of evaluation practice in ways that a conventional evaluation text or reference resource cannot.

One observation that I would make about the book is that, as might be expected, it is quite Western, if not North American-centric. This begs the question about its applicability in cross-cultural contexts. I don’t have a good answer to that one, other than to say that it has been a valued resource in my own international ECB experiences. Participants have found it to be accessible despite its cultural origins. As an amusing aside, I once had a workshop participant in India catch me at tea and ask me about the concept of “snowball sampling” (Section J, who provides data?). I proceeded to elaborate on the term, but she quickly cut me off and exclaimed “No, no, sir. I completely understand the concept. What I do not quite understand is how does this relate to a snowball?”

In our own research, we have been drawn to the prospect that “data use leads to data valuing” (Cousins & Bourgeois, 2014, p. 113). Yet getting persons responsible for policy and program development, decision making or oversight to actually experience successful use of evaluation seems to me to be a principal challenge to our field. I would argue that a significant part of the challenge is demystifying evaluation for such audiences and I can think of no better resource for that purpose than Evaluation Essentials.