Improvement Science in Evaluation: Methods and Uses: New Directions for Evaluation, Number 153 (J-B PE Single Issue (Program) Evaluation)

While improvement science has experienced a surge of interest over the past 30 years, applications of it are rare in the evaluation literature. This issue promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas, techniques, and tools between evaluation and improvement science. There are at least four areas where this cross-fertilization is particularly relevant: learning from error, examining variation, appreciating context, and focusing on systems change. This volume considers: the conceptual similarities and distinctions between improvement science and evaluation; the intellectual foundations, methods, and tools that collectively comprise improvement science; and case chapters that offer an inspiring review of state-of-the-art improvement science applications. Cutting across all of these applications is a shared grounding in systems thinking, a determination to capture and better understand variation and contextual complexity, as well as a sustained commitment to generative learning about projects and programsùall issues of great concern to evaluators. The issue offers producers and users of evaluations the potential benefits of a closer engagement with improvement science. This is the 153rd issue in the New Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication ofthe American Evaluation Association.

• | Author: Christina A. Christie, Moira Inkelas, Sebastian Lemire
• | Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• | Publication Date: Apr 24, 2017
• | Number of Pages: 112 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Political Science
• | ISBN-10: 1119378664
• | ISBN-13: 9781119378662