Evaluation and Research Glossary

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The definitions in this glossary are those used by the Big Lottery Fund.

Other evaluation and research glossaries are available at:

Glossary of Terms

Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis:

A method that examines efficiency and long-term economic benefits by standardising investments and results by their monetary costs.

Dissemination:

The act of making knowledge gained from research or evaluation available to stakeholders and the public.

Evaluability assessment:

A method of determining if an evaluation is feasible and how stakeholders can use it.

Formative evaluation:

An evaluation that examines:

  • the delivery of the programme
  • the quality of implementation
  • the organisational context, personnel, procedures and inputs.

Interim findings are fed back to evaluation participants to influence how they then proceed. The goal is to strengthen or improve the programme being evaluated. Activities associated with formative evaluation include needs assessments, evaluability assessments, and implementation and process evaluations.

Impact evaluation:

Assesses the overall effects, intended or unintended, of the programme on wider social, economic or environmental conditions.

Implementation evaluation:

An evaluation that assesses to what extent a programme is implemented as it was intended.

Learning organisation:

An organisation skilled at:

  • creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge
  • facilitating learning at the whole organisation level
  • modifying its behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights.

Meta-analysis:

Synthesises results from multiple evaluations to produce an overall conclusion about a programme’s or an approach’s effectiveness across situations.

At the Big Lottery Fund, we would use more pragmatic meta-evaluation approaches. One example of this is aggregate country evaluation findings into a UK-wide whole.

Monitoring:

The on-going process of examining the delivery of programme outputs, which is carried out during the execution of a programme with the intention of correcting any deviation from operational objectives.

This is opposed to evaluation, which takes place at specific points, consists of an in-depth study and involves judgement against criteria.

Monitoring often generates data that can be used in evaluations.

Needs assessment:

A method of determining who needs the programme, how great the need is and what will meet that need.

Outcome evaluation:

Determines whether a programme caused demonstrable effects on specifically defined outcomes.

Outcome:

This refers to what ensues as the result of an output. Within the Big Lottery Fund, it is a much-used term operating at different levels. For example, the evaluation and research strategy at the Big Lottery Fund uses it in the context of the funding framework’s ‘themes and outcomes’, signifying high-level aims of social change for a collection of programmes to be delivered by the Big Lottery Fund.

Process evaluation:

An evaluation that examines the process of delivering the programme; often produces interim findings and examples of good practice. At the Big Lottery Fund, we use it to understand what we or our funding partners do with delivery mechanisms and procedures, as compared to what projects themselves deliver.

Programme evaluation:

The systematic collection of information about activities, characteristics and outcomes of programmes used by specific people to reduce uncertainties, improve effectiveness and make decisions with regard to what the programme is doing and affecting.

Research:

A process through which we attempt to answer a question, resolve a problem, or attain a greater understanding of an issue. Research is designed to develop or contribute to generalisable knowledge. At the Big Lottery Fund, compared to evaluation, research is more exploratory and aims either to develop understanding around a specific initiative/issue or inform wider thinking.

Secondary analysis:

A method of re-examining existing data to address new questions or use methods not previously employed.

Self-evaluation:

An evaluation that is performed or commissioned by members of the organisation responsible for the intervention itself. It helps them collect and use monitoring and evaluation data to answer their own questions concerning the quality and direction of their work and manage their performance.

Summative evaluation:

Examines the effects or results of the programme, whether the programme was what caused the outcome, and the overall impact beyond the immediate outcomes.

Activities associated with summative evaluation include:

  • outcome evaluation
  • impact evaluation
  • cost-effectiveness analysis
  • cost-benefit analysis
  • secondary analysis
  • meta-analysis.

Systematic review:

Reviews existing research literature, separating high quality from low quality research evidence, and providing syntheses of what the high quality evidence is telling us about a topic or policy area. At the Big Lottery Fund, we could use this approach to review the evidence-base for new programmes.

Theories of change:

A working model of how and why the changes a programme aims to make might be expected to occur. Theories of change causally links programme activities to results and requires articulating why something will cause something else.

Models are used to plan and identify gaps in thinking, develop consensus among stakeholders, set realistic expectations, and continually improve performance. Theories of change may start with a programme, but are best when starting with a goal, before deciding what programmatic approaches are needed. An approach to programme development then forms the basis for its evaluation through providing a framework to test the theory.

Utilisation:

The implementation of findings and learning from research and evaluation.

Other evaluation and research glossaries are available at:

UK Evaluation Society
www.evaluation.org.uk/Pub_library/Glossary.htm

The Evaluation Center
http://ec.wmich.edu/glossary/prog-glossary.htf

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