The study reported here is part of a larger project which provides baseline data on local school district evaluation offices: their organization, financing, personnel, activities and relationships to other district functions. This analysis explores the relationship of the characteristics of the context in which an evaluation takes place, such as community environment, resources, and organization characteristics, to an evaluation unit's involvement in instructional renewal. The major emphasis is on variables over which the district or evaluation unit has some control, so that the results can be of practical use in improving educational evaluation. A few additional variables, which could be considered potential constraints, have been included because of their prevalence in the literature on educational organizations. This paper is a first attempt to investigate what factors are associated with the level of a unit's direct participation in the instructional change process; coordinated work focuses specifically on units with particularly high levels of instructional involvement. These combined results are potentially useful in expanding the meager data about school district evaluation offices and their ability to influence instruction. (Author/GK)