What do your results mean?
This step is very difficult, because it is when you answer your evaluation questions and
decide what should happen because of your evaluation results. There are four
facets of this process:
This is when your stakeholders, especially your evaluation users, can help you a lot.
Program Standards - What information will you use to
decide whether or not your program is successful?
One way to make your results more meaningful is by making comparisons. Places where
you can find objective measures include:
- your logic
model or the expected effects identified in your program description.
- targets
defined by your program objectives,
- fixed performance criteria such as Healthy Alaskans 2010 or Healthy People 2010,
- achievements by earlier or similar programs, and
- professional standards.
Interpretation - In practical terms, what do the
evaluation results really mean?
This is a time when you need your stakeholders!
- They can tell you how your evaluation results match up with their points of view or expectations.
- They can help you spot contradictions between your results and other information they have.
- They can help you sort out the most important findings.
Judgments - What can you say about the program's quality
or success, based on the evaluation?
It may be hard for you and your stakeholders to rate your program's success or quality.
- Many evaluations have inconsistent results.
- Your stakeholders have different priorities and needs, which might mean that they
disagree about your program's success or quality
- Your stakeholders might use different standards, and arrive at different conclusions.
These are good reasons to work together and develop evaluation judgments that everyone supports.
Recommendations - What actions should be taken, based
on the evaluation results?
Your recommendations may strengthen or weaken the usefulness of your evaluation.
- It will be stronger if your recommendations are supported by additional information
that answers users' questions and/or responds to concerns.
- If your users feel that your recommendations do not have enough evidence or if
they contradict community values, your evaluation will have a much smaller impact.
Tactics for increasing the acceptance and perceived relevance of your recommendations include:
- Sharing draft recommendations,
- Asking multiple stakeholder groups for their reactions, and
- Presenting the recommendations as a series of options instead of promoting a
single strategy.
