Key insights for the design of environmental evaluations

In: New directions for evaluation: a publication of the American Evaluation Association, Band 2009, Heft 122, S. 105-112

Abstract

AbstractImproving the future quality of program and policy evaluation in the environmental arena requires addressing four issues that emerged on reading the earlier chapters in this special issue. Framing the evaluation requires careful consideration in choosing the focus, and specifying the context and potentially confounding factors. It means identifying the purpose of the evaluation and the stakeholders most important for inclusion. Addressing attribution requires recognizing the limits of establishing causality while maintaining counterfactual thinking. More effort is needed to increase the usefulness of evaluations. Multiple stakeholders come with their own perspectives; addressing this heterogeneity requires transparency and feedback during the design, implementation, and follow‐up to any evaluation study. Finally, improving the future quality of environmental evaluation will require continued deliberation and community building. Much of this is already underway, but the pluralism should still be promoted, and our community enlarged. Evaluators in the environmental field further should continue to be mindful of contributions coming from other subfields of evaluation and applied research beyond the environmental community. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.