Diverse interests have joined forces to increase and improve after-school opportunities for children and youth. But meeting everyone’s information needs in a program evaluation can be tricky. Certain key steps can help operators and evaluators of after-school programs design and conduct evaluations that work for them.

• Develop a program theory or logic model that describes the program’s goals, strategies, expected outcomes, and anticipated timetable for implementation and results
  
  
• Bring stakeholders into the evaluation process
  
  
• Focus data collection on the events, activities, relationships, and outcomes that are central to the initiative’s success
  
  
• Consider the program context
  
  
• Build in measures of student growth in socialization and resilience
  
  
• Attend to research-design principles that ensure accuracy, generalizability, and lack of bias
  
  
• Establish frameworks for accurate comparison
  
  
• Identify and follow school district and service agency requirements for the protection of human subjects
  
  
• Obtain information from the most reliable sources available
  
  
• Describe the children and youth who participate in the after-school initiative
  
  
• Gather data on student exposure to the program and use it to analyze implementation and effects
  
  
• Set up a system for managing information
  
  
• Provide feedback to operators and stakeholders early and often
  
  
• Use the evaluation as an opportunity to analyze and report on promising local practices
  
  
• Make sure program reports convey information in understandable language

                                              Full Report