Essentials of Utilization-Focused Evaluation

Based on Michael Quinn Patton′s best-selling Utilization-Focused Evaluation, this briefer book provides an overall framework and essential checklist steps for designing and conducting evaluations that actually get used. The new material and innovative graphics present the utilization-focused evaluation process as a complex adaptive system, incorporating current understandings about systems thinking and complexity concepts. The book integrates theory and practice, is based on both research and professional experience, and offers new case examples and cartoons with Patton′s signature humor.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Step 1. Assess and Build Program and Organizational Readiness for Utilization-Focused Evaluation Step 2. Assess and Enhance Evaluator Readiness and Competence to Undertake a Utilization-Focused Evaluation Step 3. Identify, Organize, and Engage Primary Intended Users: The Personal Factor Step 4. Situation Analysis Conducted Jointly With Primary Intended Users Step 5. Identify and Prioritize Primary Intended Uses by Determining Priority Purposes Step 6. Consider and Build in Process Uses if and as Appropriate Step 7. Focus Priority Evaluation Questions Step 8. Check That Fundamental Areas for Evaluation Inquiry Are Being Adequately Addressed: Implementation, Outcomes, and Attribution Questions Step 9. Determine What Intervention Model or Theory of Change Is Being Evaluated Step 10. Negotiate Appropriate Methods to Generate Credible Findings That Support Intended Use by Intended Users Step 11. Make Sure Intended Users Understand Potential Methods Controversies and Their Implications Step 12. Simulate Use of Findings: Evaluation′s Equivalent of a Dress Rehearsal Step 13. Gather Data With Ongoing Attention to Use Step 14. Organize and Present the Data for Interpretation and Use by Primary Intended Users: Analysis, Interpretation, Judgment, and Recommendations Step 15. Prepare an Evaluation Report to Facilitate Use and Disseminate Significant Findings to Expand Influence Step 16. Follow Up With Primary Intended Users to Facilitate and Enhance Use Step 17. Metaevaluation of Use: Be Aaccountable, Learn, and Improve Summary and Conclusion

About the Author :
Michael Quinn Patton is author of more than a dozen books on evaluation including Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, 4th ed (2015), Blue Marble Evaluation (2020), Principles-Focused Evaluation (2018), Facilitating Evaluation (2018) and Developmental Evaluation (2011). Based in Minnesota, he was on the faculty of the University of Minnesota for 18 years and is a former president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA). Michael is a recipient of the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Evaluation Practice Award, the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award, and the Research on Evaluation Award, all from AEA He has also received the Lester F. Ward Distinguished Contribution to Applied and Clinical Sociology Award from the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology. In 2021 he received the first Transformative Evaluator Award from EvalYouth. He is an active speaker, trainer, and workshop presenter who has conducted applied research and evaluation on a broad range of issues and has worked with organizations and programs at the international, national, state, provincial, and local levels. Michael has three children—a musician, an engineer, and an evaluator—and four grandchildren. When not evaluating, he enjoys exploring the woods and rivers of Minnesota, where he lives.

Review :
"A well-written and interesting presentation of a complex subject." "Essentials provides an updated and refined U-FE process that reflects the evolving nature of the evaluation field and evaluation use, addresses past criticisms, and provides a process that is more easily followed, iterative as it is...In writing this book, Patton appeared to follow the wisdom of Albert Einstein, who said, ‘Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.’ Patton has done this with Essentials of Utilization Focused Evaluation...The book offers practical exercises at the end of each chapter. These are not exercises for which one can go back and find the answer in the book, but rather applications that require a person to reflect and think. This is in keeping with the U-FE approach, which provides a framework requiring reflection, critical thinking, and flexibility in order to apply it appropriately."