A qualitative study looking at the nature, development and utility of questions for evaluation research was conducted within the framework of several State of Florida agencies. The majority of the effort took place within the Office of Evaluation and Management Review, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (DHRS), and the Planning and Evaluation Section, Office of Planning and Budgeting, Executive Office of the Governor (EOG-OPB). / Research activities were organized around three general issues. First, what types of questions are being asked by individual agencies. To answer this question, a classification scheme was developed and applied to 114 questions drawn from 44 studies conducted by the agencies participating in the study. Questions were analyzed and classified as either (1) description of program, (2) description of clients, (3) impact, (4) research, (5) policy issues, or (6) cost. Results of this analysis showed questions fall into one of the first three categories about 75% of the time. / The second activity was a qualitative investigation into the actual development of questions within Evaluation units. This involved a number of interviews with individuals who participate in the question development process. In addition to the interviews, a survey was utilized to obtain information about the relative input of participants in the question development process and to gather information about the evaluators and their background. This investigation identified no single developmental path for evaluation questions; rather a variety of formats were utilized within each office. / The final activity concerned the utility of evaluation questions. First, principle evaluation report users were interviewed to assess their feelings towards studies prepared by the offices participating in this study. Then, several workshops were conducted with evaluation personnel to expose them to a formal question identification procedure (The Evaluation Framework) designed for use in state agencies. Results of these two activities (1) showed users to be generally satisfied with evaluation studies but not totally in agreement with evaluators about what types of questions should be included and (2) generally in favor of the methods and approach to evaluation presented in the Evaluation Framework but concerned about the lack of flexibility associated with this approach. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-09, Section: A, page: 2743. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75175 |
| Contributors | THOMPSON, TERENCE JAMES., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 177 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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