“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.” So says Gandalf to Saruman, as recounted by him at the Council of Elrond in Chapter 2, Book II of The Fellowship of The Ring. In the context of the story, Gandalf is criticizing Saruman for wanting to…
In an academic setting, learning consisted of taking notes in lecture halls, doing homework, and taking tests. Up until recently, I’ve mainly learned alone in the comfort of my room. There wasn’t an incentive to learn with others because study groups weren’t productive for me and many of the activities I indulged in, such as…
In celebration of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we’d like to recognize EVALCORP’s Founder, President, and Principal Consultant, Kristen Donovan, PhD. A social psychologist with over 30 years of evaluation, measurement, and consulting experience, Kristen founded EVALCORP in 2002 to support safe, healthy, and strong communities throughout Orange County and the State…
In the previous blog post, I explained why evaluators encourage using a validated survey measure in place of a tailor-made questionnaire. I unpacked what validated measures are and what they can do for an evaluation. This week, I will share how an evaluator selects a validated measure as well as how programs should implement the…
When working with an evaluator, you may have been encouraged to use a “validated” survey measure in place of a tailor-made questionnaire. At first, this might seem like a strange proposition: why use a measure that wasn’t specifically developed for your program or intervention? The short answer is that validated measures have special characteristics that…
Happy new year! To kick off 2022, we wanted to bring it back to our core and remind you of our approach to evaluation and consulting. At EVALCORP our relationship with our clients comes first! One of the main priorities at EVALCORP is to provide actionable and valuable data to inform decisions. Across all evaluation…
With the end of the year quickly approaching, we often encounter folks who are stretched too thin facing numerous conflicting deadlines. So, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share a few time-management skills. Some of the following tips are strategies we’ve implemented and found to be effective, while others are frequently mentioned…
The global COVID-19 pandemic brought many aspects of life and work to a halt. Fortunately, many of our community partners were able to continue the good work they do but under different circumstances which meant we, as their trusted partners, had to step up and support their efforts to measure the work they do in…
EVALCORP has been a long-term partner of Waymakers of Orange County and has continually evaluated their education and prevention programs including their Impaired Driving program which after ten years, will sunset June 30, 2021. Historically this program has worked to educate both the public and retail/restaurant establishment owners, managers, and employees about responsible alcoholic beverage…
As you know from our last post, we’re in the midst of a 3-part series on empowerment evaluation. In our prior installment we introduced the basics of empowerment evaluation providing you with some of the key concepts and a big picture overview. For this post we’d like to focus a little more on one of the…