Evaluations are expensive. Even if they are conducted by the staff, they take valuable time. If they are conducted by outsiders, this normally includes international or national teams requiring fees, accommodation, and air travel.
Once the team is in place, there are substantial costs for data collection: national or regional surveys, field work, stakeholder interviews, and consultative meetings.
In general, evaluation studies should receive a budget of between one percent and three percent of the total programme budget. In some cases, additional money may be needed. It is unlikely that it will be possible to conduct an evaluation, even one internally conducted, for a very small amount of money. Programmes that are not expensive to conduct, and perhaps that do not intend to continue, should consider whether a traditional evaluation is worth doing.
In such cases, it may be sufficient to use staff meetings to assess the programme through a series of basic questions that address best practices and lessons learned:
- What went well?;
- What could have been improved? And;
- What would we do differently if we did this again?
When a small percentage of an educational programme amounts to a substantial budget, educators should consider how best to spend the money in order to have an evaluation that is useful.
Quick and Dirty, or Deep and Thoughtful?
Researchers can extend evaluations over long periods of time. Usefulness requires good information as soon as possible.
Cost and time must be weighed carefully. It may appear to be true that spending more and taking longer will produce more reliable results. This may not be true, and whether those results will come in time for policy development and future planning must be assessed.
In general, evaluations err, unsurprisingly, on the quick and dirty. When there is a great deal at stake, and where there is more money available and a larger programme to evaluate, educators may consider setting in motion the deep study.
Both have their advantages. But there are many things that need to be done, and only so much time and money. Which will it be?
