An Empirical Comparison of Responsive and Preordinate Approaches to Program Evaluation

PTogram evaluation is intended to com-municate accurate and useful information to audiences responsible for deciding the future of a program. This definition sug-gests a list of criteria for judging the utility of an evaluation: 1) the evaluation should provide accurate information; 2) the infor-mation should be valuable to the defined audiences; and 3) the evaluation report should communicate efficiently and effec-tively with the audiences. In addition, the cost of designing and conducting the eval-uation must be considered when judging its practicality. Stake (Note 1) has distinguished be