A Typology of Evaluation Studies
Judgment
What to Revise/Change Formative
What to Begin, Continue, Expand Summative
Needs Assessment How should we adapt the model we are considering?
Should we begin a program? Is there sufficient need?
Process Is more training of staff needed to deliver the program appropriately?
Are sufficient numbers of the target audience participating in the program to merit continuation?
Outcome How can we revise our curricula to better achieve desired outcomes?
Is this program achieving its goals to a sufficient degree that its funding should be continued?
objectives will be achieved, but a process study may also serve summative purposes. A process study may reveal that the program is too complex or expensive to deliver or that program recipients (students, trainees, clients) do not enroll as expected. In such cases, a process study that began as a formative evaluation for program improvement may lead to a summative decision to discontinue the program. Accountability studies often make use of process data to make summative decisions.
An outcome study can, and often does, serve formative or summative purposes. Formative purposes may be best served by examining more immediate outcomes be- cause program deliverers have greater control over the actions leading to these out- comes. For example, teachers and trainers often make use of immediate measures of student learning to make changes in their curriculum or methods. They may decide to spend more time on certain areas or to expand on the types of exercises or prob- lems students practice to better achieve certain learning goals, or they may spend less time on areas in which students have already achieved competency. Policymakers making summative decisions, however, are often more concerned with the pro- gram’s success at achieving other, more global outcomes, such as graduation rates or employment placement, because their responsibility is with these outcomes. Their decisions regarding funding concern whether programs achieve these ultimate out- comes. The fact that a study examines program outcomes, or effects, however, tells us nothing about whether the study serves formative or summative purposes.