Objectives driven participatory evaluation model

Abstract

The ability to complete program evaluations of educational programming is typically restricted by the availability of resources, such as time, money and a trained evaluator. Although not a replacement for trained evaluators, promoting evaluative capacity and evaluative thinking within an organization can help mitigate this gap between talent and resources. Participatory evaluation is purported to increase organizational learning and promote evaluative thinking within an organization (Cousins & Whitmore, 1998). Objectives oriented evaluation is an easily understood evaluation method which provides a refined focus program outcome (Madaus & Stufflebeam, 1989). Using an internal evaluation of a new faculty onboarding course at a private non-profit college system, a mixed methods study was completed to explore the use of a participatory evaluation program evaluation with the use of the program objectives as an advanced organizer. An explanatory sequential design was employed utilizing quantitative findings to collect qualitative data to further explore the participants' experiences completing the program evaluation. This combined evaluation methodology met the criteria posited in Daigneault and Jacob (2009) and Toal (2009) to be considered participatory in its implementation. It also involved participants in ways which provided them experiences which helped develop evaluative thinking, skills, and beliefs.