Sample Surveys: Help for the "Out-of-House" Evaluator

Abstract

program evaluation has become a common activity at all levels of government. Program evaluations are conducted both in-house at the departmental, agency, and interdepartmental level, and out-of-house by governmental and nongovernmental evaluation organizations.' The current interest in program evaluation and its growth as a professional field is rooted in the very practical realization that many . . human resource, health improvement, and social development programsregardless of geographical location and sponsorship-have been misguided, misconceived, badly implemented, and ineffective.' When combined with economic recession, taxpayer revolts, threatened municipal bankruptices, and the current popularity of balanced budgets, the proliferating interest in the evaluation of government programs can be easily understood. Some individuals, in turn, have hailed evaluation research as a new field of social science achieving maturity as a discipline.3 Others have described program evaluation as an effort to make do with considerably less than one ideally would desire. In the spirit of the latter definition, it is suggested that program evaluation has a long way to go before achieving the status of a scientific discipline. Many reasons account for this. The literature has tended to emphasize political and organizational factors and staff capabilities as inhibitors of the professional development of the field. Often overlooked is the quality of program information, which is the foundation of program evaluation. Given the current poor state of program information, discussion of program evaluation as a scientific discipline is premature and the utilization of sophisticated quantitative analysis is often inappropriate. Furthermore, care should be taken to remember that the primary purpose of program evaluation is to better serve the public, not to develop another professional discipline. Much more effort should be directed at developing reliable program information. One resource often overlooked for this purpose is the use of sample surveys to supplement existing program information sources. Sample surveys are a form of public opinion poll or citizen