Research

Evaluation

Funding agencies are interested in the outcomes of your project and for your feedback on the progress to allow for improvement throughout your project’s performance period. As a result, agencies commonly require a detailed evaluation plan as part of a proposal submission. They also want to be sure you to accomplish your proposal objectives and for your proposed research/project to have consequential impact with the latter becoming a proposal evaluation criterion for many funding agencies.

The Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation, or OEIE, can help you develop an evaluation plan for your proposal and conduct the evaluation once you receive your grant. They are very adept at using the Logic Model— a favored evaluation tool of many funding agencies such as USDA and NSF — and at developing plans that fit both the funder’s requirements and your project needs. Specific evaluation services include:

  • Designing evaluation plans for grant proposals.
  • Utilizing logic models to communicate alignment of activities to short-term and long-term goals.
  • Facilitating strategic planning to inform your proposal as well as development of SMART objectives.
  • Translating an evaluation plan into an implementation plan.
  • Designing methods and instruments to measure goals and objectives outlined in proposals.
  • Implementing all evaluation components, including instrument design, data collection, analysis, and reporting.
  • Integrating technology to streamline data collection, analysis, and reporting.
  • Monitoring the effectiveness of activities for alignment with goals.
  • Providing formative and summative evaluation to stakeholders.

All evaluation design and implementation plans OEIE develops are consistent with the Program Evaluation Standards established by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. Although on the K-State campus, they meet the definition of an independent, third-party evaluator as suggested by NSF, USDA, and other funding agencies. For more information, including a list of funded projects that OEIE has evaluated, visit the OEIE website and contact the director at oeie@k-state.edu or 785-532-5930.