Program evaluation requires attention to rationality, rigor, and careful methods. Yet precision and accuracy alone do not guarantee that program evaluations will be implemented. What prevents an evaluation from being thrown on a shelf to gather dust?

Author Gerald Emison, a practitioner with more than 20 years experience, knows that the consumers of program evaluations operate in a decidedly practical and political arena where decision making is a very human and sometimes messy process. Getting students from ideas to outcomes means that knowing clients’ needs and effectively communicating results are just as crucial as an evaluator’s theoretical knowledge and statistical analysis. Emison wants to help students translate their mastery of methodology into useable program evaluations that are implemented and affect actual programs.

Short and to-the-point, Practical Program Evaluations hones in on the applied side of program evaluation, with the goal of creating and presenting program evaluations that are used and improve public enterprises. A handy supplement to core texts, Emison offers honest advice, emphasizing practices that focus on the client, content, control and communication of program evaluations.

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Tables, Figures, and Boxes

Preface

Chapter 1. Program Evaluations that Matter
The Myth of Ceteris Paribus
Practicing Program Evaluation in a Complex World
Why Should You Read This Book?
The Paradox of Applied Program Evaluation
The Core Principles of the C4 Approach
An X-Ray of the Book
Our Purpose Is Program Evaluations That Matter

Chapter 2. The Landscape of Program Evaluation
The Public Interest
Pursuing the Public Interest through Rationality
Delving Into Program Evaluation
The Four C’s and the Landscape of Program Evaluation

Chapter 3. Understand Your Client
Know What Your Client’s Interests Are
Know What Success Is
Have a Principal Who Can Do Something
Put the Evaluation in a Management Context
Do the Right Thing
Exercises and Discussion Questions

Chapter 4. Know the Content
Build the Analysis on Facts
Align Your Evidence and Your Conclusions
Simplicity Always Trumps Elegance
Don’t Let the Illusion of the Perfect Drive out the Reality of the Good
Never Underestimate the Power of Accurate Description
Exercises and Discussion Questions

Chapter 5. Control the Work
Have a Real Work Plan
Meet the Deadline
Getting People with the Right Skills and Temperament
Expect Something to Go Wrong
Use More Than One Set of Eyes
Know Your Core Values
Exercises and Discussion Questions

Chapter 6. Communicate with Clarity
Lead with Communicating Ideas Not Details
Write and Speak in Short Words with Short Sentences
Preview, Provide, and Review the Messages
Visuals That Support, Not Supplant, the Briefing
Exercises and Discussion Questions

Chapter 7. In The Long Run
Personal Success
Professional Success

Endnotes
Index

“Professor Emison’s book on program evaluations brings thoughtful insight and analysis to a topic of considerable importance in public administration. He successfully integrates his previous experience as a professional program evaluator into the text, and offers readers numerous examples and case studies to reinforce applicable discussions. Emison’s use of figures, charts, and study questions, further entice exploration of the theme. For academicians, Emison’s book provides a valuable resource for both research and teaching. For practitioners, it presents an opportunity to build a strong substantive framework while polishing one’s program evaluation skills. In short, Emison’s book is well-constructed, analytical, and vigorous.”

“I believe that Gerald Emison’s Practical Program Evaluations outlines a timely, cogent, and absolutely essential approach to program evaluation in the modern era. I have been teaching practical program evaluation for ten years, and I concur with his concerns that the academic approach to program evaluation often produces technically competent, but politically naïve evaluators. Perhaps the book’s greatest strengths are its brevity and its recognition that program evaluation is not strictly a scientific question, but also a management-based issue. By identifying critical issues likely to confront evaluators in the midst of a project, the book provides a valuable reality check to keep evaluators focused on the implementation of evaluation recommendations. I look forward to adopting the text in my classes.”

“Gerald Emison’s Practical Program Evaluations is an important contribution to the study of the topic. The real world case studies Emison provides will help students to understand the parameters and boundaries program evaluators must negotiate as they ply their craft. The book also supplies a useful tool kit of techniques which evaluators must be aware of that go beyond being just theoretical blueprints.”

Gerald Andrews Emison is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University. At MSU, he teaches public management and environmental policy. His research interests concern the effectiveness of public environmental institutions, professionalism in city planning and engineering, and environmental consequences of growth management.

Prior to joining to MSU, Emison served in a number of senior executive positions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the Director of the Program Evaluation Division, Director of the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards and the Deputy Regional Administrator in Seattle. In his executive capacities, he produced as well as was the customer for program and policy analyses on vital public issues. Among his activities he was an architect of the Clean Air Act of 1990, supervised EPA’s clean up responsibilities at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and managed the Spotted Owl controversy for EPA. As a result of his work at EPA he received the presidential rank designation for meritorious senior executive service.

He received his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds additional graduate degrees in Political Science and Engineering Management. His undergraduate work was in Civil Engineering, and was followed by service in the Seabees in Viet Nam. He is a registered professional engineer, a board-certified diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.