Video: Why Conduct a Rigorous Evaluation?
Do you want to make a case for your reentry program? Sometimes programs may have seen achieved positive outcomes or received positive feedback from program participants. These results might seem compelling, but without a rigorous evaluation, there is no way of to knowing whether your program was implemented as intended or whether it has an impact. A comprehensive evaluation includes the following:
- Program description: The program description clearly describes the program model through such tools as a logic model. It answers questions like such as “Whom is are the program targetsing?” and “What types of services are provided?”
- Process evaluation: A process evaluation details how the program is implemented in practice, describing key elements like such as whom the program was served, whether the activities were carried out as planned, and how much of the programing programming clients actually received.
- Outcome evaluation: An outcome evaluation is based on empirical and systematic measures of outcomes (e.g., arrest rates) and compares outcomes between program participants who received services to outcomes of a similar group of people who did not.
This brief video from the Evaluation and Sustainability Training and Technical Assistance (ES TTA) team at RTI International and the Center for Justice Innovation (formerly the Center for Court Innovation) provides an overview of the key steps involved in a rigorous evaluation.
