Page 360 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes programmes. Formative evaluation is particularly relevant to programmes whose goals and
objectives cannot be well specified in advance, are open to interpretation by actors at different
levels of the system, or which seem likely to change over the lifetime of the programme. In
many of the newer EU programmes, the objective is to introduce changes in the innovative
behaviour of companies and regions and to launch a process of building up collective learning.
Formative evaluation can be a driver of, and contributor to, the organic learning and knowledge
creation processes that exist within regions and networks and should itself be understood as a
developmental process.
Formative evaluation has most relevance at the ex ante and mid-term phases, and indeed some
programmes evolve continuously, never reaching a stage of being finished or complete. Formative
evaluation activities may be extended throughout the life of a programme to help guide this
evolution. Post-ante evaluations may draw on evidence from formative evaluation although their
primary focus is summative.
Formative evaluation is ideally built into the programme design as an ongoing activity rather
than inserted into a particular phase. It may however take a particular form at different stages of
the evaluation lifecycle.
At the needs assessment stage in an ex ante evaluation, formative evaluation can determine who
needs the programme, how great the need is, and what might work to meet the need.
Formative evaluation can inform evaluability assessment. Working with funders, programme
managers, staff and participants in the early stages of clarifying goals and strategies making
them realistic and evaluable, establishing how much consensus there is among goals and
interventions and where the differences lie constitutes the essential groundwork for a formative
evaluation. Evaluability assessment becomes an improvement-oriented experience that leads to
significant programme changes and shared understandings, rather than just being seen as a
planning exercise preparing for summative evaluation.
Formative evaluation follows the lifecycle of the initiative through implementation, tracking the
fidelity of the programme to goals and objectives, investigating the process of delivery, diagnosing
the way the component parts of the programme come together and reinforce or weaken one
another, and addressing problems as they emerge. Programme implementation is in large part
about ongoing adaptation to local conditions. The methods used to study.
31.1.2 Purposes of the Technique
Large scale, medium to long term socio-economic programmes are often designed and
implemented in dynamic, fluid contexts characterised by imperfect information, changing policy
agendas and goal posts, unpredictable environmental conditions and moving target groups of
intended beneficiaries. Formative evaluation is a strategy for dealing with a context of this kind.
It starts from the premise that no matter how comprehensive and considered the programme
design, it will invariably require steerage and possibly redirection, and will be considerably
strengthened by opportunities for stakeholder reflection on what is working, what is not going
to plan, and what kinds of changes need to be made. Formative evaluation is prospective in
orientation, and conceived within a continuous cycle of information gathering and analysis,
dialogue and reflection, and decision-making and action. It has commonalities with forms of
evaluative inquiry that draw on organisational learning models and processes, giving it a strong
developmental focus for the organisation as a whole and for organisational members.
Formative evaluations that are inclusionary and participative, involving local programme actors
as active contributors and participants in the evaluation process, bring pragmatic benefits in
addition to enhancing professional development and organisational capacity. Including staff as
collaborators is likely to facilitate the collection not only of more reliable data, but of data that
are actively used to improve daily programme activities at the local level.

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