Utilization-Focused Evaluation Checklist

Utilization-Focused Evaluation (U-FE) begins with the premise that evaluations should be judged by their utility and actual use; therefore, evaluators should facilitate the evaluation process and design any evaluation with careful consideration of how everything that is done, from beginning to end, will affect use. Use concerns how real people in the real world apply evaluation findings and experience the evaluation process.  Therefore, the focus in utilization-focused evaluation is on intended use by intended users.  Since no evaluation can be value-free, utilization-focused evaluation answers the question of whose values will frame the evaluation by working with clearly identified, primary intended users who have responsibility to apply evaluation findings and implement recommendations.   

Utilization-focused evaluation is highly personal and situational.  The evaluation facilitator develops a working relationship with intended users to help them determine what kind of evaluation they need.  This requires negotiation in which the evaluator offers a menu of possibilities within the framework of established evaluation standards and principles. 

Utilization-focused evaluation does not advocate any particular evaluation content, model, method, theory, or even use.  Rather, it is a process for helping primary intended users select the most appropriate content, model, methods, theory, and uses for their particular situation.  Situational responsiveness guides the interactive process between evaluator and primary intended users.  A utilization-focused evaluation can include any evaluative purpose (formative, summative, developmental), any kind of data (quantitative, qualitative, mixed), any kind of design (e.g., naturalistic, experimental), and any kind of focus (processes, outcomes, impacts, costs, and cost-benefit, among many possibilities).  Utilization-focused evaluation is a process for making decisions about these issues in collaboration with an identified group of primary users focusing on their intended uses of evaluation.   

A psychology of use undergirds and informs utilization-focused evaluation: intended users are more likely  to use evaluations if they understand and feel ownership of the evaluation process and findings; they are more likely to understand and feel ownership if they’ve been actively involved; by actively involving primary intended users, the evaluator is training users in use, preparin