Christie, Christina A.
Improvement Science in Evaluation: Methods and Uses: New Directions for Evaluation, Number 153
While improvement science has experienced a surge of interest over the past 30 years, applications of it are rare in the evaluation literature.
This issue promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas, techniques, and tools between evaluation and improvement science. There are at least four areas where this cross-fertilization is particularly relevant: learning from error, examining variation, appreciating context, and focusing on systems change. This volume considers:
- the conceptual similarities and distinctions between improvement science and evaluation;
- the intellectual foundations, methods, and tools that collectively comprise improvement science; and
- case chapters that offer an inspiring review of state-of-the-art improvement science applications.
Cutting across all of these applications is a shared grounding in systems thinking, a determination to capture and better understand variation and contextual complexity, as well as a sustained commitment to generative learning about projects and programs—all issues of great concern to evaluators. The issue offers producers and users of evaluations the potential benefits of a closer engagement with improvement science.
This is the 153rd issue in the New Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication ofthe American Evaluation Association.
Keywords: editors; distinctions; science; moira; improvement; tools; sebastian lemire; improvement science; foundation; intellectual; newborns; healthcare access; neighborhoodbased; approach; application, Higher Education General, Higher Education General
- Editor
- Christie, Christina A.
- Inkelas, Moira
- Lemire, Sebastian
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
- Publication year
- 2017
- Language
- en
- Edition
- 1
- Series
- J-B PE Single Issue (Program) Evaluation
- Page amount
- 112 pages
- Category
- Upbringing, Education
- Format
- Ebook
- eISBN (ePUB)
- 9781119378679
- Printed ISBN
- 9781119378662