While improvement science has experienced a surge of interest over the past 30 years, applications of it are rare in the evaluation literature. This issue promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas, techniques, and tools between evaluation and improvement science. There are at least four areas where this cross-fertilization is particularly relevant: learning from error, examining variation, appreciating context, and focusing on systems change. This volume considers: the conceptual similarities and distinctions between improvement science and evaluation; the intellectual foundations, methods, and tools that collectively comprise improvement science; and case chapters that offer an inspiring review of state-of-the-art improvement science applications. Cutting across all of these applications is a shared grounding in systems thinking, a determination to capture and better understand variation and contextual complexity, as well as a sustained commitment to generative learning about projects and programs—all issues of great concern to evaluators. The issue offers producers and users of evaluations the potential benefits of a closer engagement with improvement science. This is the 153rd issue in the New Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication ofthe American Evaluation Association.

While improvement science has experienced a surge of interest over the past 30 years, applications of it are rare in the evaluation literature. This issue promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas, techniques, and tools between evaluation and improvement science. There are at least four areas where this cross-fertilization is particularly relevant: learning from error, examining variation, appreciating context, and focusing on systems change. This volume considers: the conceptual similarities and distinctions between improvement science and evaluation; the intellectual foundations, methods, and tools that collectively comprise improvement science; and case chapters that offer an inspiring review of state-of-the-art improvement science applications. Cutting across all of these applications is a shared grounding in systems thinking, a determination to capture and better understand variation and contextual complexity, as well as a sustained commitment to generative learning about projects and programs—all issues of great concern to evaluators. The issue offers producers and users of evaluations the potential benefits of a closer engagement with improvement science. This is the 153rd issue in the New Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication ofthe American Evaluation Association.

Practical Mapping for Applied Research and Program Evaluation is the first book to bring the mapping methodology to social research and program evaluation. Bernadette Wright and Steven E. Wallis guide readers through all phases of the research process: learning from stakeholder experience; reviewing existing knowledge in the field; conducting new data collection such as interviews; collaborating with other researchers; and facilitating the use of knowledge for communication, collaboration, and action. With plenty of illustrations and navigational aids such as “travel tips,” the book is an accessible guide for busy students, researchers, and managers of all levels of experience.

While several texts provide pedagogical and theoretical insights on improvement science for faculty, graduate students, and educational leaders, practitioners’ voices are seldom heard. Improvement Science in the Field: Cases of Practitioners Leading Change in Schools fills this gap by presenting real-life cases of K-12 practitioners’ use of improvement science to lead change in their educational systems. Improvement Science in the Field: Cases of Practitioners Leading Change in Schools contains two sections. Part I presents practitioners’ accounts of their use of improvement science to address actual problems of practice, such as closing discipline and achievement gaps, managing teacher stress and mental health, and improving school climate. Part II follows a tradition of case-based teaching in which authors provide part of their improvement journey and then invite readers to practice, discuss, brainstorm, and reflect on how they would address the problem presented using the tools of improvement science.

Evaluators who are interested in developing or improving a program or policy frequently look to formative evaluation as a guiding framework. This book shows why those hoping to use evaluation to drive change in complex systems, rather than develop or improve one program, policy, or product, need to shift from the oversimplified idea of formative evaluation to a more specified continuous improvement model grounded in improvement science. In doing so, author Kristen L. Rohanna provides guidance to both evaluators and others, such as K-12 educators or hospital administrators, who lead improvement initiatives in their organizations and seek to solve persistent problems of practice. The book includes an extended case study: a networked improvement community of five public middle and high schools.

This new edition of this bestselling guide offers an integrated approach to process improvement that delivers quick and substantial results in quality and productivity in diverse settings. The authors explore their Model for Improvement that worked with international improvement efforts at multinational companies as well as in different industries such as healthcare and public agencies. This edition includes new information that shows how to accelerate improvement by spreading changes across multiple sites. The book presents a practical tool kit of ideas, examples, and applications.

Economic, academic, and social forces are causing undergraduate schools to start a fresh examination of teaching effectiveness. Administrators face the complex task of developing equitable, predictable ways to evaluate, encourage, and reward good teaching in science, math, engineering, and technology. Evaluating, and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics offers a vision for systematic evaluation of teaching practices and academic programs, with recommendations to the various stakeholders in higher education about how to achieve change. What is good undergraduate teaching? This book discusses how to evaluate undergraduate teaching of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology and what characterizes effective teaching in these fields. Why has it been difficult for colleges and universities to address the question of teaching effectiveness? The committee explores the implications of differences between the research and teaching cultures-and how practices in rewarding researchers could be transferred to the teaching enterprise. How should administrators approach the evaluation of individual faculty members? And how should evaluation results be used? The committee discusses methodologies, offers practical guidelines, and points out pitfalls. Evaluating, and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics provides a blueprint for institutions ready to build effective evaluation programs for teaching in science fields.

In Mixed Methods Design in Evaluation, the first volume of SAGE's Evaluation in Practice Series, best-selling author Donna M. Mertens explores the meaning of mixed methods evaluation, its evolution over the last few decades, and the dominant philosophical frameworks that are influencing thought and practice in the field today. Four chapters explore evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions, development of instruments, systematic reviews, and policy evaluations, while an additional chapter covers evaluation approaches often required in specific contexts including gender responsive evaluations, needs assessment, and evaluations in conflict zones. Practical in nature, the book guides readers’ thinking about the design of mixed methods evaluations through the use of illustrative examples and explanations for further applications.

Program Theory-Driven Evaluation Science fills the gap between 21st century literature on evaluation and what is happening in practice. It features detailed examples of how evaluations actually unfold in practice to develop people, programs, and organizations. Commonly accepted strategies for practicing evaluation are outlined, followed by comprehe

Evaluation Methodology Basics introduces evaluation by focusing on the main kinds of 'big picture' questions that evaluations usually need to answer, and how the nature of such questions are linked to evaluation methodology choices. The author: shows how to identify the right criteria for your evaluation; discusses how to objectively figure out which criteria are more important than the others; and, delves into how to combine a mix of qualitative and quantitative data with 'relevant values' (such as needs) to draw explicitly evaluative conclusions.