GENERAL METHODS, and links that don't fit elsewhere

Also see the books, manual, guides section.  Some of the links are to sources that have general methods.  For example, see the Knowledge Base link, and other links.


"What Constitutes Credible Evidence in Evaluation and Applied Research?"   http://www.cgu.edu/pages/4085.asp   Debates on "the realities of using randomized control trials (RCTs), and the need for serious academic scholarship to inform evaluation."  Also see videos of presentations

Also from CGU   "Applying the Science of Psychology & Evaluation Across the Globe"   http://www.cgu.edu/pages/154.asp   links to 'credible evidence' and other interesting material.



Evaluation Checklist Project   http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/checklists/   checklists on evaluation.

http://mande.co.uk/   "A news service focusing on developments in monitoring and evaluation methods relevant to development projects with social development objectives." Has announcements of conferences, jobs, books.  Also, some papers are on the Mande site, for example, Networks section, The Evaluation of Networks part has "Evaluating International Social Change Networks: A Conceptual Framework for a Participatory Approach." Ricardo Wilson-Grau and Martha Nunez


Methodology.co.uk   http://www.methodology.co.uk/   "provides a free resource to researchers, students and university teachers who are interested in learning more about anything to do with research methods." At present (March 11, 2008), it seems to still be in a state of development, but it could in the future have a great deal of resources. This is from Sage. One of the resources they provide is free access to an article of the month from one of their journals.


Statistical Methods for Rater Agreement    http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jsuebersax/agree.htm    "This site is a resource for the analysis of agreement among raters, diagnostic tests, observers, judges or experts. It contains background discussion on different methods, examples, references, software, and information on recent methodological developments."
 

ZUMA - How to series.   http://www.gesis.org/en/research/gesis-publications/gesis-series/how-to-series/   "The ZUMA How-to series consists of selected themes from the area of social science methodology and is specifically designed to be uncomplicated and unpretentious in form.  The forte of this special idea is in the sharing and imparting of know-how that is relevant, important and helpful for the user. Its aim is to offer concrete advice for methodological procedures. Please note that HOW-TO is published exclusively in German!" I don't read German so I don't know what they say, but ZUMA is a good site, so they should be good.
 

Bob Williams home page   http://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill/   See the free resources page for some interesting writings, works in progress and links, such as TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVALUATION, and others.
 

How to present negative results   http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~lilleys/tips.html   "How to Deliver Negative Evaluation Results Constructively.  The following pointers are a summary of the suggestions provided by members of Evaltalk, the American Evaluation Association Discussion List in June 2002. These suggestions are based on the assumptions that the primary purpose of evaluation is to improve programs or initiatives, and that people are more open to learning and change when they are not feeling threatened."  This is prepared by Susan Lilley
 

Robert Hanneman's free text on social network analysis   http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/
 

Evaluation of information sources   http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm    links to web sites that have info on how to evaluate web sites. 
 

Facilitated Systems has an introduction to system dynamics   http://facilitatedsystems.com/pubs.html    see the article "Applying System Dynamics to Business: An Expense Management Example"
 

A plea for practical evaluation   http://www.mande.co.uk/archives/199701000.htm   an essay by George Balch and Sharyn Sutton about issues and problems of practical evaluation.


Market Research Portal   http://www.marketresearchworld.net/index.php   a LOT of useful methods sections, articles about market research processes, focus groups, survey methods, sampling, lots more.


Institute for Public Relations   http://www.instituteforpr.org/index.php/IPR/research/methods/P0/   research methods papers. Some papers include A New Model for Media Content Analysis, Fun Things To Do With Measurement, Guidelines for Formative and Evaluative Research in Public Affairs and Guidelines For Measuring Relationships in Public Relations.


Evaluation web service of the Treasury Board Secretariat.   http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/eval/eval_e.asp   see their resources page for a whole bunch of stuff about how to develop evaluation units, review quality of evaluation, then see their research page for this Conference on Cost-Effectiveness in Evaluation.


International Statistical Literacy Project    http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/islp/home    Aid in the development of statistical literacy around the world.


Statistical Literacy   http://www.statlit.org/   studies summary statistics used in everyday arguments.  Statistical literacy helps people read and interpret numbers in graphs, tables, statements and studies.


Just Plain Data Analysis: Companion Website   http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jpda/   companion to a book, but has some of the topics here, a little bit about Reversing causal direction, and Ecological Fallacy, and the Hawthorne effect.


Business and industry evaluation tig   http://www.e-valuate-it.com/aea-bi-tig/   has some conference papers on line from several conference. One from the 2001 conference is mainstreaming evaluations in corporate environments.  One from the 2005 is Building Evaluation Capacity.


Free evaluation resources for developing countries   http://earth.prohosting.com/elecon/evaldevel/evaldevelopment.html   Project Goal:  To work with a coalition of evaluators and evaluation organizations to provide evaluation, consulting or training resources to organizations and evaluators in developing countries.


Methodspace http://www.methodspace.com/    "Methodspace is the home of the Research Methods community from across the world"


US Dept of Energy has this   http://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/program_evaluation/   program evaluation from another point of view.



Email lists:  I don't list any because others have comprehensive lists.  See

http://www.sociolog.com/     click on links and then mailing lists. Some good lists are Evaltalk, methods and SRMS. 


American Evaluation Association list of email lists   http://www.eval.org/Resources/Listservs.asp   including evaltalk and others..
 

Misc

Procrastination Central   http://webapps2.ucalgary.ca/~steel/Procrastinus/    nothing to do with evaluation, just something interesting.


click here to return to methods page
last updated 12/25/08
last verified 12/25/08