CIPP model for program evalaution aiou
CIPP model for program evalaution aiou
The CIPP Model
In the mid 1960s, Daniel L.Stufflebeam recognized the shortcomings of available evaluation approaches. Working to expand and systemized thinking about administrative studies and education decision making, he and others built on concepts only hinted at the much earlier work of educational leaders such as Henry Bernard, Horace Mann, William Tory Harris, and Carleton Washburne (Fitzpatrick, Sanders, & Worthen, 2004). Stufflebeam and his colleagues developed the CIPP Model in the 1960s. The CIPP Model is a comprehensive framework for guiding formative and summative evaluations of projects, programs, personnel, products, institutions, and systems (Stufflebeam, 1968). The model is configured for use in internal evaluations conducted by an organization´s evaluators; self-evaluations conducted by project teams or individual service providers, and contracted or mandated external evaluations. According to Stufflebeam (1999), the model has been employed throughout the United States and around the world in short-term and long-term investigations both small and large.
The CIPP framework was developed as a means of linking evaluation with programmed decision-making. It aims to provide an analytic and rational basis from programmed decision-making, based on a cycle of planning, structuring, implementing and reviewing and revising decisions, each examined through a different aspect of evaluation such as context, input, process and product evaluation. Stufflebeam (1999) viewed evaluation in terms of the types of decisions it served and categorized it according to its functional role within a system of planned social change. The CIPP model is an attempt to make evaluation directly relevant to the needs of decision-making during the different phases and activities of a program.
In the CIPP approach, in order for an evaluation to be useful, it must address those questions which key decision-makers are asking, and must address the questions in ways and language that decision-makers will easily understand (Cronbach, 1982). The approach aims to involve the decision-makers in the evaluation planning process as a way of increasing the likelihood of the evaluation findings having relevance and being used. Stufflebeam thought that evaluation should be a process of delineating, obtaining and providing useful information to decision-makers, with the overall goal of program or project improvement (Cronbach, 1982).
There are many different definitions of evaluation, but one which reflects the CIPP approach. Program evaluation is the systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcome of programs for use by specific people to reduce uncertainties, improve effectiveness, and make decisions with regard to what those programs are doing and affecting (Patton, 2004). Stufflebeam sees evaluation´s purposes as establishing and providing useful information for judging decision alternatives, assisting an audience to judge and improve the worth of some educational program or object, and assisting the improvement of policies and programs (Stufflebeam, 1983).
Based on Stufflebeam theory, there are four aspects of CIPP evaluation which assist decision-making. Context evaluations determines what needs are addressed by a program and what program already exist helps in defining objectives for the program. Input evaluation determines what resources are available, what alternative strategies for the program should be considered, and what plan seems to have the best potential for meeting needs facilitates design of program procedures. Process evaluation asses the implementation of plans to help staff carry out activities and later help the broad group of users judge program performance and interpret outcomes. Product evaluations identify and asses outcomes (intended and unintended), short term and long term to help staff keep an enterprise focused on achieving important outcomes and ultimately to help the broader group of users gauge the effort´s success in meeting target needs (Stufflebeam, 1999).
One of the problems with evaluation in general is getting its findings used. Though its focus is on decision-making, CIPP aims to ensure that its findings are used by the decision-makers in a project. CIPP also takes a holistic approach to evaluation, aiming to paint a broad picture of understanding of a project and its context and the processes at work. It has potential to act in formative, as well as summative way, helping to shape improvements while the project is in process, as well as providing a summative or final evaluation overall. The formative aspect of it should also, in theory, be able to provide a well-established archive of data for a final or situations within the whole project
