Assignment
At the heart of any evaluation is the evaluation design. It is now common consensus in policy evaluation that no amount of sophisticated analysis can repair a poorly designed study. There is no such thing as a perfect evaluation design and there are always tradeoffs. One of the most important tradeoffs has to do with internal and external validity. This is true whether you are doing a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods evaluation.
For this Assignment, review this week's Learning Resources and begin the process of developing your evaluation design by outlining its main features.
Submit a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:
• Explain how you would implement your evaluation design within an official policy evaluation. Be sure to include specific examples from the course readings, academic research and professional experience. Provide a rationale for your implementation choices, including examples and references.
• Explain how you would address validity threats, particularly internal validity (plausible rival hypothesis). Provide a rationale for these plans, including any expected outcomes, using examples and references.
• Langbein, L. (2012). Public program evaluation: A statistical guide (2nd ed.). Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.
o Chapter 2, "Defensible Program Evaluations: Four Types of Validity" (pp. 26-50)
o Chapter 3, "Internal Validity: The Logic of Internal Validity" (pp. 51-72)
• McDavid, J. C., Huse, I., & Hawthorn, L. R. L. (2013). Program evaluation and performance measurement: An introduction to practice (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
o Chapter 3, "Research Designs for Program Evaluations" (pp. 89-144)
• United States Government Accountability Office (USGAO). (2012). Designs for assessing program implementation and effectiveness. In Designing evaluations: 2012 revision (pp. 31-49).
• Cook, T. D., Scriven, M., Coryn, C. L. S., & Evergreen, S. D. H. (2009). Contemporary thinking about causation in evaluation: A dialogue with Tom Cook and Michael Scriven. American Journal of Evaluation, 31(1), 105-117.
• The World Bank. (2011). Evaluation designs.