Page Turner Bibliography
The Only Evaluation Book You Need
By: Kim Sabo, Ph.D.
From Volume 3, Issue 3
Books on evaluation tend to be fairly theoretical and technical; few offer many practical examples for those who want to know how to conduct an evaluation themselves. If you’re just getting started on an evaluation plan, use the websites listed on our Links page and in The Wire. These sites, which are much more user-friendly than most books, provide practical tools and activities that immediately engage you in evaluation practices. However, if you want to get into more depth, there’s one book on evaluation that stands out as being most useful for afterschool practitioners.
Evaluation Books
Utilization-Focused Evaluation: The New Century Text (3rd ed.)
by Michael Quinn-Patton
Michael Quinn Patton, the former president of the American Evaluation Association, is a wonderful storyteller with a gift for bringing humor to an otherwise dry subject. Unlike most evaluation books, this one is actually an enjoyable read. Through his anecdotes, Quinn Patton provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the field of evaluation, including the various types of evaluation, uses of evaluation data, and examples of good practice. Quinn Patton advocates for a particular brand of evaluation, which he calls "utilization-focused." Utilization-focused evaluation “emphasizes that what happens from the very beginning of a study will determine its eventual impact long before a final report is produced” (p. 20). He argues that evaluation should be judged by its usefulness; therefore, evaluators should "facilitate the evaluation process and design any evaluations with careful consideration of how everything that is done, from beginning to end, will affect use" (p. 20). The book presents practical examples of how to conduct utilization-focused evaluations, including tips for identifying the primary users of an evaluation, focusing the evaluation, making decisions about which methods to use, analyzing data, and presenting findings
