How do educational leaders know whether their improvement efforts are actually working? EDD8528 develops the assessment and evaluation competencies needed to generate reliable knowledge about organizational performance, apply that knowledge to improvement decisions, and sustain the continuous learning cycles that define a genuine learning organization.
Evaluation purposes, models, and approaches
Matching evaluation approaches to organizational questions
- Varied purposes of evaluation: EDD8528 examines the distinct purposes that evaluation serves in learning organizations — formative evaluation (providing feedback during implementation to guide improvement), summative evaluation (judging whether a program or initiative achieved its intended outcomes), developmental evaluation (supporting innovation and adaptation in complex, dynamic environments), and empowerment evaluation (building organizational capacity for self-evaluation rather than depending on external evaluators)
- Evaluation models: The course covers major evaluation models including Stufflebeam's CIPP model (Context, Input, Process, Product), which provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating educational programs across their full lifecycle; Kirkpatrick's four-level model (reaction, learning, behavior, results), originally developed for training evaluation but widely adapted for educational program evaluation; and Patton's utilization-focused evaluation, which begins by identifying the intended users and uses of evaluation findings and designs the evaluation to maximize the likelihood that findings will actually be used for improvement
- Choosing and applying models: EDD8528 develops the judgment needed to select and adapt evaluation approaches based on the specific organizational question being asked, the intended use of the evaluation findings, the available resources and timeline, the organizational culture and politics surrounding the evaluation, and the ethical considerations involved — rather than defaulting to a single familiar model regardless of context
Data-informed leadership and decision making
EDD8528 builds on the data literacy competencies from EDD8050, applying them specifically to leadership decision making in learning organizations. The course examines how leaders use multiple forms of data — quantitative performance metrics, qualitative stakeholder feedback, observational data, process data, and outcome data — to inform organizational decisions. The course addresses the common pitfalls of data-informed decision making: the temptation to cherry-pick data that supports predetermined conclusions, the tendency to confuse correlation with causation, the risk of measuring what is easy to measure rather than what is important to measure, and the danger of reducing complex organizational phenomena to simple metrics that distort rather than illuminate organizational reality.
Reflective practice for organizational learning
Assessment and evaluation in a learning organization are not merely technical activities — they require reflective practice that connects data to meaning and meaning to action. EDD8528 draws on Donald Schön's concept of the reflective practitioner to develop the leader's capacity for reflection-in-action (thinking about what is happening while it is happening and adjusting in real time) and reflection-on-action (systematic retrospective analysis of what happened, why it happened, and what should be done differently). The course also examines how leaders can create organizational conditions that support collective reflection — structures and norms that enable teams and organizations to regularly examine their own practices, assumptions, and outcomes rather than continuing on autopilot.
Continuous improvement cycles
The capstone integration of EDD8528 connects assessment and evaluation to the continuous improvement frameworks that run through the entire EdD program. The course applies the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle methodology from improvement science to organizational assessment: planning what to assess and how, collecting and analyzing assessment data, studying the results to identify patterns and implications, and acting on findings to improve organizational practice — then repeating the cycle to monitor whether improvements are producing the intended effects. This iterative approach positions assessment and evaluation not as periodic events (the annual program review, the accreditation self-study) but as ongoing organizational practices embedded in the daily work of learning organizations.
EDD8528 assignments include evaluation design proposals, data analysis reports, reflective practice papers, and improvement cycle portfolios
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Evaluation design proposals, data analysis reports, reflective practice papers, improvement cycle portfolios, program evaluation plans.
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Frequently asked questions
Utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) is an evaluation approach developed by Michael Quinn Patton, first published in Utilization-Focused Evaluation (1978, now in its fourth edition, 2008), that begins from the premise that evaluations should be judged by their actual use and that the evaluator's primary responsibility is to design and conduct evaluations that will actually be used for their intended purposes — not evaluations that are merely methodologically rigorous, technically sophisticated, or comprehensive. This premise, which sounds obvious, represents a direct response to the persistent finding that most program evaluations are not actually used to inform decision making: evaluation reports sit unread on shelves, evaluation findings are ignored when they conflict with political interests or organizational inertia, and evaluation processes are treated as compliance exercises rather than learning opportunities. Patton's argument is that the primary reason evaluations go unused is that they are designed backward: evaluators typically begin by asking "What should we evaluate?" and "What methodology should we use?" — starting with the evaluation's content and methods — rather than asking "Who will use these findings?" and "What decisions will these findings inform?" — starting with the evaluation's intended users and uses. UFE reverses this sequence: the evaluator's first task is to identify the primary intended users of the evaluation (the specific people who will make decisions based on the findings) and the primary intended uses (the specific decisions or actions the findings will inform), and then to design every aspect of the evaluation — questions, methods, data collection, analysis, reporting — to maximize the likelihood that these specific users will actually use the findings for these specific purposes. This means, for example, that an evaluation designed for a school board deciding whether to continue a program will look very different from an evaluation designed for a teaching team trying to improve their instructional practices, even if both evaluations are evaluating the same program — because the users are different, the uses are different, and therefore the evaluation questions, methods, timeline, reporting format, and level of detail should all be different. EDD8528 emphasizes UFE because it directly addresses the most common failure mode of organizational evaluation in educational settings: the production of evaluations that are technically adequate but practically useless — evaluations that satisfy accountability requirements but contribute nothing to organizational learning or improvement. For educational leaders in learning organizations, the UFE framework transforms evaluation from a bureaucratic obligation into a strategic leadership tool: rather than asking "How do we evaluate this program?" the leader asks "What do we need to learn, who needs to learn it, and how can evaluation help us learn it?" — a question that positions evaluation as a mechanism for organizational learning rather than merely organizational accountability.