You and your evaluator together – with your program expertise, and your evaluator's analysis of evaluation data – will come up with a "storyline" that you understand and are comfortable conveying to various audiences interested in your evaluation findings.

Provider Roles and Responsibilities

  • Ask questions to ensure the quantitative and qualitative analyses found are clear
  • Help the evaluator "fill in the blanks" regarding why certain results may have been found
  • Request additional analyses to explore particular findings or test new hypotheses
  • Clarify expected reaction/how to address reaction of stakeholders
  • Change program elements based on evaluation results as needed (for example, curriculum, service delivery strategy, etc.)
     

Evaluator Roles and Responsibilities

  • Present findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses pertaining to each evaluation question
  • Present findings in a way that is easy for the provider to understand
  • Present findings on program implementation and immediate outcomes frequently enough to allow the provider to make program improvements
  • Inform the provider of problems with data quality that may have affected findings
  • Answer questions the provider may have about the findings; ensure they understand what the findings mean and don't mean
  • Solicit the provider's insights as to why these findings were obtained
     

Joint Responsibilities

  • Develop a "storyline" that integrates all findings (quantitative and qualitative) pertaining to program implementation, participation, outcomes, and impacts in a way that clearly, accurately, and completely captures evaluation findings
  • Generate hypotheses on why the findings were (or were not) expected
  • Discuss how to convey these findings to various stakeholders

Other Resources