Partnerships for Program Evaluation

• In Event: Program Evaluation in a Large Urban District: A Nuts-and-Bolts Perspective

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes: This paper will focus on the research team’s collaboration with the schools and school district that host our study. Specifically, it will address:
• The nature of the relationships our research team has formed within the partner district, including how those have supported our work and how they have evolved over the course of the project;
• Communication strategies and processes for managing and maintaining these relationships;
• Examples of challenges and problems—some of them significant—that have arisen in relation to the partnership and how we have addressed them;
• Lessons learned from this evaluation that cann be applied to future projects.

Theoretical Framework: There is a new and growing literature focused on research-practice partnerships (Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Penuel, Allen, Coburn, & Farrell, 2015). However, this literature is largely theoretical or exploratory and generally removed from the context of evaluation. As an evaluation team, we have consistently worked closely with our partner schools and a large urban district in ways that have made it possible to accomplish all of our project goals to date despite a number of challenges could otherwise have threatened the viability of the project.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: N/A

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: This paper will utilize concrete examples from the Zoology One study illustrate the importance of strong partnership management in the context of school-based program evaluation. Obstacles our team has encountered will be addressed in ways that transcend the specific context of this study to be useful to evaluation researchers in general. Artifacts, examples, and materials from the study will be incorporated as needed to support this focus.

Results and/or Substantiated Conclusions or Warrants for Arguments/Point of View: At the conclusion of our first year of the evaluation, all project targets have been met. We have successfully surmounted a number of obstacles and emerged with an even stronger collaborative relationship with the host district. Principals and teachers in our partner schools have been very positive about their experience and recommended participation in year two of the study to peers and colleagues. The successful navigation of these relationships is a key part of the success of our project and an area where we can contribute insights.

Scholarly or scientific significance: As noted, there is currently a gap in the evaluation literature as relates to the day-to-day decisions and problems that routinely arise in the course of these projects. The management of partnerships with host schools and districts is one example of an aspect of program evaluation that is underaddressed in the literature. Our focus on this aspect of the Zoology One evaluation is therefore a contribution to the field.

Authors

• Abigail Gray, University of Pennsylvania

• Anushka Patel, University of Pennsylvania

• Ryan Fink, University of Pennsylvania