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his guide from the US General Accounting Office outlines good practice in case study evaluation and establishes a set of principles for applying case studies to evaluations. The paper outlines new ways of thinking about case studies and examines the methodology necessary to get the best from a case study analysis.

The theme of learning from experience as a means of improving the effectiveness of rural development projects and programmers has been common in recent years. Considerable effort has been put into refining, monitoring and evaluation systems to enhance organizational learning processes. However, an emphasis on normative approaches to evaluation and learning from experience has led to the neglect of research into the actual processes by which rural development agencies utilize experience. The...

"Weapons of the Weak" challenges conventional understandings of peasant resistance by focusing on the subtle, often overlooked ways that peasants resist domination. Rather than focusing on dramatic uprisings, Scott examines the everyday acts of resistance that occur in the shadows of power. Key Arguments Resistance is not always visible: Scott argues that resistance is not limited to organized rebellions. Everyday acts like foot-dragging, gossip, feigned ignorance, and petty theft can be...

Developed by Practical Concepts Inc. in 1979. Key document in the development of the logical model/framework

designed to foster collaboration, share knowledge, and promote scholarship, this TIG is a division of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).

Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organisational change which focuses on strengths rather than on weaknesses - quite different to many approaches to evaluation which focus on deficits and problems. "Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most...

A case study focuses on a particular unit - a person, a site, a project. It often uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. Case studies can be particularly useful for understanding how different elements fit together and how different elements (implementation, context and other factors) have produced the observed impacts. There are different types of case studies, which can be used for different purposes in evaluation. The GAO (Government Accountability Office) has...

Causal Link Monitoring (CLM) integrates design and monitoring to support adaptive management of projects. CLM helps project planners and managers identify the processes that are required to achieve desired results, and then to observe whether those processes take place, and how. Result-producing processes specify the causal links between results in a logic model or results framework—in other words, the processes between results. CLM focuses on how specific individuals or organizations use...

Contribution Analysis is an approach for assessing causal questions and inferring causality in real-life program evaluations. It offers a step-by-step approach designed to help managers, researchers, and policymakers arrive at conclusions about the contribution their program has made (or is currently making) to particular outcomes. The essential value of contribution analysis is that it offers an approach designed to reduce uncertainty about the contribution the intervention is making to the...

Critical System Heuristics (CSH) provides a framework of questions about a program including what is (and what ought to be) its purpose and its source of legitimacy and who are (and who ought to be) its intended beneficiaries. CSH, as developed by Werner Ulrich and later elaborated upon in collaboration with Martin Reynolds, is an approach used to surface, elaborate, and critically consider boundary judgments, that is, the ways in which people/groups decide what is relevant to the system of...

Democratic Evaluation is an approach where the aim of the evaluation is to serve the whole community. This allows people to be informed of what others are doing and sees the evaluator as someone who brokers the process. It generally focuses on inclusive practices which foster participation and collaboration. However it is also used as a means of ensuring public accountability and transparency.

Developmental Evaluation (DE) is an evaluation approach that can assist social innovators develop social change initiatives in complex or uncertain environments. DE originators liken their approach to the role of research & development in the private sector product development process because it facilitates real-time, or close to real-time, feedback to program staff thus facilitating a continuous development loop. Michael Quinn Patton is careful to describe this approach as one choice that...

Empowerment Evaluation is an approach which provides communities with the tools and knowledge that allows them to monitor and evaluate their own performance. First developed by David Fetterman who describe it as “the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination.”

Horizontal evaluation is an approach that combines self-assessment by local participants and external review by peers. Originally developed to evaluate new methodologies for agricultural research and development, horizontal evaluation has wider potential for application. In its original setting, the focus of horizontal evaluation is the actual R&D methodology itself rather than the project per se or the team or organisation that developed it

Preparing an ‘innovation history’ is an option for recording and reflecting on an innovation process. People who have been involved in the innovation jointly construct a detailed written account (sometimes referred to as a ‘learning history’) based on their recollections and on available documents. The process of preparing this history stimulates discussion, reflection and learning among stakeholders. Subsequent planning drawing on the innovation history, can (i) build on the lessons...

An institutional history (IH) is a narrative that records key points about how institutional arrangements – new ways of working – have evolved over time and have created and contributed to more effective ways to achieve project or programme goals. An IH is generated and recorded in a collaborative way by scientists, farmers and other stakeholders. A key intention behind institutional histories is to introduce institutional factors into the legitimate narrative of success and failure in...

The Most Significant Change (MSC) approach involves generating and analysing personal accounts of change and deciding which of these accounts is the most significant – and why. The are three basic steps in using MSC: Deciding the types of stories that should be collected (stories about what - for example, about practice change or health outcomes or empowerment) Collecting the stories and determining which stories are the most significant Sharing the stories and discussion of values with...