Evaluating your project
Types of evaluation
Evaluation can operate at a number of different levels. For example, practitioners such as beat officers may want to evaluate the success of a specific engagement initiative in a local area. Senior managers may need to evaluate the success of a whole programme or strategy for community engagement.
One important distinction to be aware of is that between formative (process) evaluation and summative (outcomes and outputs) evaluation.
Formative evaluation focuses on the question: 'How can we do this better?' It examines the processes by which an initiative or programme is delivered and identifies barriers and success factors. Formative evaluation can feed back into the initiative and influence its development. It can also help to clarify the aims and objectives of an initiative by focusing stakeholders on likely outcome measures. It tends to use mostly 'qualitative' data collection methods, such as in-depth interviews with stakeholders, or focus groups.
Summative evaluation focuses on the question:'Was this a success?' It seeks to assess the achievement of aims and objectives, using a specified set of outcome measures. A wide range of data collection methods can be used. Qualitative methods may again be useful; 'quantitative' methods, such as public attitude surveys, may also be used.
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