Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment
Formative Evaluation
Formative Evaluation: Assistance Developing, Implementing, and Documenting Educational Programs
Formative Evaluation typically involves gathering information during the early stages of your project or program, with a focus on finding out whether your efforts are unfolding as planned, uncovering any obstacles, barriers or unexpected opportunities that may have emerged, and identifying mid-course adjustments and corrections which can help insure the success of your work.
Essentially, formative evaluation is a structured way to provide program staff with additional feedback about their work. This feedback is primarily designed to fine tune the implementation of the program, and often includes information that is purely for internal use by program managers. Some information may also be reported in the summative evaluation of program impact, particularly if it is relevant to the replicability or design evolution of the program.
Some programs evolve continuously, never reaching a stage of being finished or complete; formative evaluation activities may be extended throughout the life of a program to help guide this evolution. Successful formative and summative evaluation depend not only on thorough program design and planning, but also on the early adoption of an effective data collection strategy and in many cases a management information database which allows program staff and evaluators easy access to well organized program information.