Evaluating Public Programmes: Contexts and Issues

A discussion of the contexts and issues involved in evaluating public programmes. Ian Shaw begins by outlining the development of evaluation research and highlighting the key methodological issues which concern contemporary research. A part of this, he demonstrates, is the move in emphasis from evaluation concerned with output towards evaluation concerned with understanding process or how programmes work. He concludes the first chapter by arguing that many of the issues in evaluation research are influenced as much, if not more, by political as they are by methodological considerations. The following chapters build upon this initial argument to examine the issues raised in a number of case studies.