NYDIC Archive

Evaluation Resources

The Evaluation Resources page provides current evaluations and evaluation tools for use in the youth development field.

Click here to find archived evaluation resources in the nydic library.

New Issue of the Evaluation Exchange (HFRP Listserv)

The newest issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" focuses on advocacy and policy change. Advocacy that influences or informs public policy has the potential to achieve large-scale results for individuals, families, and communities. Consequently, there is much interest in understanding how to make advocacy and policy change efforts more effective. Click here to download this issue online.

Level Best: The Step-by-Step Guide to Evaluation for Grassroots Nonprofits (Jossey-Bass Listserv)

Level Best offers guidance that demystifies evaluation and takes into account the unique challenges and realities of grassroots nonprofit organizations. It provides a new framework for thinking about evaluation and tools for tracking and sharing results in ways that are practical, efficient and meaningful. Click here to order your copy.

Connections between Out-of-School Time and Other Settings  (Harvard Family Research Project Listserv)

Check out the new double issue focusing on creating and evaluating connections between out-of-school time programs and the other settings in which children and youth live, learn, and play. You'll find articles that explore how these connections affect quality and outcomes of programs, what current research teach us and how these connections can be evaluated. Click here to download this new Evaluation Exchange issue.

Pitfalls and Pratfalls: Null and Negative Findings in Evaluating Interventions

This volume of the New Directions for Evaluation journal discusses a range of design, implementation, and analysis issues relevant not only to evaluation studies but also to interventions that can contribute to negative or null findings in the evaluation of an intervention program. Click here to order an issue of the journal.

Small-Scale Evaluations (Harvard Family Research Project Listserv)

"Learning from Small-Scale Experimental Evaluations of After School Programs" reviews the evaluation strategies and findings from rigorous, experimental studies that are smaller or more local in scope than the national evaluations usually featured by Harvard Family Research Project. Click here to read the "Snapshot" online.

Afterschool Boosts Student Achievement, Expectation of Success

A newly released afterschool evaluation from researchers at Yale and New York University (NYU) concludes that students in afterschool programs, particularly those who were "highly engaged" in their programs, had significantly higher reading achievement and expectations of academic success than other students. Click here to read the "Child Development" article and other material about the study.

Conference Evaluation Toolkit

After analyzing the results of a 2-year pilot study, the Out-of-School Time Resource Center (OSTRC) is excited to announce the release of their Conference Evaluation Toolkit! The surveys are free of charge to the public for use within out-of-school time conferences. In return, we are asking that users share the survey data with the OSTRC, in order to create a data bank that will track the use of these surveys over time on a national level. Click here for more information.

Evaluation Activities in Organizations

The Free Management Library at The Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits has released a comprehensive collection of full-text publications and links related to the many different kinds of evaluations performed by non-profits. Click here to view their website.

Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Database and Bibliography

The Harvard Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Database has been updated! There are 12 new profiles about out-of-school time (OST) programs and their evaluations. This brings the total number of profiles in the database to 89. Additionally, the bibliography of out-of-school time evaluation reports now include 31 new citations and 19 updated citations. Click here to view the resource.