Traditional versus Developmental Evaluation ^†

Abstract

When evaluating the effectiveness of public health, and behavioral and medical interventions, various methods can be used to systematically judge the merit, worth, value, and significance of the program’s outcomes. This presentation will describe what is meant by “evaluation approaches” by providing examples of the characteristics of several different types of approaches, such as, the appreciative inquiry, beneficiary assessment and case study approaches. The presentation will then focus on introducing the developmental evaluation approach by comparing it to the traditional evaluation approach in terms of its purpose, the evaluator’s role, accountability, measurement, and results. Examples of the causal inference pathways underlying the developmental and traditional approaches will illustrate how developmental approaches can accommodate multivariable and multivariate models, this can be used to evaluate the intricacies of complex real-world problems and programs.