A 8. Promoting a RealWorld and Holistic approach to Impact Evaluation

Trainer: Nermine Wally
Level: Intermediate/advanced
Language: English (The workshop will be run primarily in English, but participants will also be able to ask for clarifications and assistance in Arabic)

Workshop description:

As an evaluator, do you find yourself in situations where you are expected to deliver high quality evaluations under time, financial, data and political constraint? If you are coming from a research background, you may find it challenging to cope with a number of constraints when asked to design and conduct an evaluation of a ‘real-world’ program. If it is the case, than this workshop is for you.
 
Typical constraints include lack of comparable baseline data, much less data on a relevant comparison group, and insufficient time or budget allocated by clients. How can you conduct adequately valid evaluations under such circumstances? The facilitator of this workshop will summarize the approaches advocated in the RealWorld Evaluation book, and share examples from her extensive and international experiences. She will emphasize the need for more holistic and practical approaches to impact evaluation.
 
While engaging in the current debates on different evaluation designs, the course will present the seven steps of the Real World Approach and will focus on challenges to conducting impact evaluations of complex and evolving programs in complex and evolving contexts. Through participatory processes we will explore techniques that help evaluators and clients ensure the best quality evaluation under real-world constraints like those
described above. Based on positive evaluations by participants in previous workshops, this one will focus on applying techniques during small-group work and discussions using case study exercises.
 
Learning outcomes:

Upon successfully completing this course, participants will be able to know:
- How to conduct adequately rigorous evaluations when it is not possible to follow “rigorous” research methodologies, such as randomized control trials (RCTs).
- For people relatively new to the field of evaluation, the course will be an introduction to the general principles of evaluation.
- For experienced evaluators, the course will address special issues involved in conducting evaluations under RealWorld constraints.