Learning from Evaluations

This article presents select results of a study on the forms and the conditions of learning through evaluation, based on case studies of evaluations of the Swiss Energy 2000 Programme. Taking into account current approaches to learning theory, the analysis makes it clear that evaluations trigger different kinds of learning effects that act on different levels. The study concludes that the majority of effects on the operational level concerning the programme's fine-tuning (i.e. development of guidelines for implementation, optimization of the database, clarifying target groups etc.) are essentially dependent on how well the evaluators and their commissioning clients accomplish their tasks. The most relevant factors influencing direct learning from evaluation are thus: the involvement of affected parties in the formulation of the evaluation questions, the use of feedback circuits during the course of the evaluation and the production of a report whose language is appropriate to its intended audience. Effects at the strategic and structural level are equally positively influenced by the abovementioned factors. However, they also depend on the occurrence of socalled ‘windows of opportunity’. Although evaluators and their clients cannot control these, they can try to take advantage of them when they occur.