5 credits

There are a variety of tools available to policymakers and policy analysts to evaluate the impact of social programs. In this course, students examine these tools and work toward gaining the skills needed to develop plans for evaluation and to assess social programs effectively. Students engage in discussions and assignments designed to provide practical application of content on a variety of topics, such as selecting programs to evaluate, crafting program descriptions, identifying stakeholders and their interests, developing logic models, framing evaluation questions, applying utilization-focused evaluation techniques, using quantitative and qualitative tools to complete formative and summative evaluations, and providing evaluation reports and feedback to decision makers. Using concepts presented in the course, students gain hands-on experience developing an evaluation design for a social program.