Guide to Project Evaluation:  A Participatory Approach

Appendix 1: Definitions of Evaluation Terms

Common Evaluation Terms and What They Mean

• evaluation - a way of measuring if a project is doing what it says it will do.

• goals - general statements of what an organization is trying to do.

• objectives - specific, measurable statements of what an organization wants to accomplish by a given point in time.

• objective approach - an approach which values the perspective, views and opinions of those outside of or distanced from the situation, event, organization, project, etc., as the primary basis for making an assessment or judgment.

• informant - in research and evaluation terminology, the person you interview or question is called the "informant".

• impact or outcome evaluation -gathers information related to the anticipated results, or changes in participants, to determine if these did indeed occur. It may also be used to test the effectiveness of a new program relative to the results of an existing form of service. An impact evaluation will tell you about the effects of a project.

• process or formative evaluation -an ongoing dynamic process where information is added continuously (typically using a qualitative approach), organized systematically and analysed periodically during the evaluation period. A process evaluation will tell you how the project is operating.

• quantitative approach - an approach that tries to determine cause and effect relationships in a program. A quantitative approach will use measurements, numbers and statistics to compare program results. The information that is found is considered "hard" data.

• qualitative approach - an approach that examines the qualities of a program using a number of methods. This approach uses non-numerical information - words, thoughts and phrases from program participants, staff and people in the community - to try and understand the meaning of a program and its outcome. The information that is found is considered "soft" data.

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