All Publications & Resources
|
A Review of Activity Implementation in Out-of-School Time Programs
This Snapshot examines the range and scope of activities being implemented in current out-of-school time programs to set a context for understanding the links between program activities and positive outcomes for youth.
Detangling Data Collection: Methods for Gathering Data
This Snapshot describes the common data collection methods used by current out-of-school time programs to evaluate their implementation and outcomes.
Beyond the Head Count: Evaluating Family Involvement in Out-of-School Time
This brief offers an overview of how out-of-school time programs can evaluate their family involvement strategies and practices. It draws on findings from our OST Evaluation Database, interviews, and email correspondence.
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning was developed for advocates, evaluators, and funders who want guidance on how to evaluate advocacy and policy change efforts. This tool takes users through four basic steps that generate the core elements of an advocacy evaluation plan, including what will be measured and how.
Grantmaking to School Districts: Lessons for Foundations
This brief offers lessons and best practices from foundations across the country on grantmaking to school districts. It offers advice to foundations that are considering school district investments for the first time. It also offers a useful "check" to more experienced foundations that want to examine their thinking and approaches against the lessons and practices of other foundations.
Lessons in Evaluating Communications Campaigns: Five Case Studies
This paper examines how communication campaigns with different purposes (individual behavior change and policy change) have been evaluated. It offers a discussion of theories of change that can guide evaluation planning, along with five case studies of completed campaign evaluations. Each case study includes lessons from the evaluation and the paper finishes with a set of cross-case-study lessons gleaned from these evaluations and others.
Learning From Logic Models: An Example of a Family/School Partnership Program
This brief offers a step-by-step approach for developing and using a logic model as a framework for a program or organization’s evaluation. Its purpose is to provide a tool to guide evaluation processes and to facilitate practitioner and evaluator partnerships. The brief is written primarily for program practitioners, but is also relevant and easily applied for evaluators.
Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Inquiry
Book chapter on using mixed methodology in the social sciences. In B. Somekh & C. Lewin (Eds.), Research methods in the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Engaging With Families in Out-of-School Time Learning
This Snapshot provides an overview of how researchers are evaluating out-of-school time programs’ engagement with families.
Youth Involvement in Evaluation & Research
This brief draws on information collected from focus group interviews with representatives of 14 programs that are involving youth in their evaluation and research efforts. It examines the elements of successful youth involved research projects and offers short profiles of the 14 organizations included in the study.
Indicators: Definition and Use in a Results-Based Accountability System
This brief defines and explores the role of indicators as an integral part of a results-based accountability system. The brief shows how indicators enable decision makers to assess progress toward the achievement of intended outputs, outcomes, goals, and objectives.
Evaluation Options for Family Resource Centers
This report examines different evaluation designs and their respective strengths and limitations. Using a realistic prototype of a child and family resource center, the authors present three alternative plans for evaluation.
Family Strengthening Interventions: Evidence-Based Practices
The purpose of this class is to provide professional skills that will help students to select, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of evidence-based family strengthening interventions. Students will increase their knowledge, skills, and expertise in the most up-to-date information on effective family strengthening interventions in their area of primary interest.
Beyond School Hours VIII Annual Conference
Priscilla Little presented the workshop Learning What Works: An Evaluation Overview, providing an overview of what we know about after school evaluation. It examines how programs are collecting meaningful data for accountability and program improvement and what they are finding.
21st Century Community Learning Centers Summer Institute
This workshop, Redefining After School Programs to Support Student Achievement, provides an overview of current evaluation research, describes elements of effective after school programs, and discusses a theory of change approach to designing and implementing effective after school programs.
Performance Measures in Out-of-School Time Evaluation
This Snapshot outlines the academic, youth development, and prevention performance measures currently being used by out-of-school time programs to assess their progress, and the corresponding data sources for these measures.
Evaluation of 21st Century Community Learning Center Programs: A Guide for State Education Agencies
This brief offers an in-depth look at the 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) evaluation requirements (both performance measurement for accountability and program evaluation) and provides practical suggestions about how to implement 21st CCLC evaluation at the state and local level. It includes a checklist of issues to consider when designing state and local 21st CCLC evaluations.
Documenting Progress and Demonstrating Results: Evaluating Local Out-of-School Time Programs
A collaboration with the Finance Project, this brief provides practitioners of local out-of-school time programs with techniques, tools, and strategies for improving their program and tracking their effectiveness over time.
Selected Evaluation Terms
This resource provides definitions of evaluation terminology frequently used in the out-of-school time field. It also provides answers to frequently asked evaluation questions.
Evaluating Municipal Out-of-School Time Initiatives
To inform municipal leaders who are developing out-of-school time evaluations, HFRP scanned the city-level initiatives in its evaluation profiles database and prepared this short brief that describes the evaluation approaches, methods, and performance measures that some cities are using for evaluation.
Why, When, and How to Use Evaluation: Experts Speak Out
This brief offers expert commentary on the implications of the first-year report of the national evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program for future evaluation and research. It includes a methodological critique of that study, written by Deborah Vandell.
Evaluation's Role in Supporting Initiative Sustainability
This paper offers ideas for the roles that evaluation can play in helping ensure a discussion about sustainability is started early enough and maintained throughout an initiative. The ideas in this paper are based on Harvard Family Research Project's broad spectrum of experience in the past two decades with large-scale initiatives.
Exploring Quality Standards for Middle School After School Programs: What We Know and What We Need to Know Summit
This summit, made possible through a grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, brought together after school staff, administrators, researchers, and funders to discuss how quality assessment looks and feels different for after school programs that serve middle school youth.
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies, a tool from Harvard Family Research Project, guides school districts to create a logic model that can aid in planning, implementing, assessing, and communicating about their systemic family engagement efforts.
Measurement Tools for Evaluating Out-of-School Time Programs: An Evaluation Resource
This Snapshot describes instruments used by current out-of-school time programs to evaluate their implementation and outcomes.