Although the general conceptual basis appeared far earlier, theory-driven evaluation came to prominence only a few decades ago with the appearance of Chen's 1990 book "Theory-Driven Evaluations." Since that time, the approach has attracted many supporters as well as detractors. In this paper, 45 cases of theory-driven evaluations, published over a…

Participatory evaluation approaches have a relatively long history of advocacy and application in the international development evaluation community. Despite widespread use and apparent resonance with practitioners and donors alike, very little empirical research exists on why and how participatory evaluation approaches are used in international…

Legitimate knowledge claims about causation have been a central concern among evaluators and applied researchers for several decades and often have been the subject of heated debates. In recent years these debates have resurfaced with a renewed intensity, due in part to the priority currently being given to randomized experiments by many funders…

Brinkerhoff's Success Case Method (SCM) was developed with the specific purpose of assessing the impact of organizational interventions (e.g., training and coaching) on business goals by analyzing extreme groups using case study techniques and storytelling. As an efficient and cost-effective method of evaluative inquiry, SCM is attractive in other…

This research describes, classifies, and comparatively evaluates national models and mechanisms used to evaluate research and allocate research funding in 16 countries. Although these models and mechanisms vary widely in terms of how research is evaluated and financed, nearly all share the common characteristic of relating funding to some measure…