Editing Evaluation (section)

===Purpose===
The main purpose of a program evaluation can be to "determine the quality of a program by formulating a judgment" Marthe Hurteau, Sylvain Houle, Stéphanie Mongiat (2009).<ref name=HHM2009>{{cite journal|author=Hurteau, M.|author2=Houle, S. |author3=Mongiat, S. |year=2009|title=How Legitimate and Justified are Judgments in Program Evaluation?| journal=Evaluation| volume=15|issue=3| pages=307–319|doi=10.1177/1356389009105883|s2cid=145812003 }}</ref> An alternative view is that "projects, evaluators, and other stakeholders (including funders) will all have potentially different ideas about how best to evaluate a project since each may have a different definition of 'merit'. The core of the problem is thus about defining what is of value."<ref name="Reverberation" />
From this perspective, evaluation "is a contested term", as "evaluators" use the term evaluation to describe an assessment, or investigation of a program whilst others simply understand evaluation as being synonymous with applied research.

There are two functions considering to the evaluation purpose. Formative Evaluations provide the information on improving a product or a process. Summative Evaluations provide information of short-term effectiveness or long-term impact for deciding the adoption of a product or process.<ref>{{cite web|title=Evaluation Purpose|url=http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/eval/eval_purpose.html|work=designshop – lessons in effective teaching|publisher=Learning Technologies at Virginia Tech|access-date=13 May 2012|author=Staff|year=2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120530230306/http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/eval/eval_purpose.html|archive-date=2012-05-30|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Not all evaluations serve the same purpose some evaluations serve a monitoring function rather than focusing solely on measurable program outcomes or evaluation findings and a full list of types of evaluations would be difficult to compile.<ref name=Reverberation /> This is because evaluation is not part of a unified theoretical framework,<ref>{{cite book|author=Alkin |author2=Ellett |year=1990 |page=454 |title=not given}}</ref> drawing on a number of disciplines, which include [[management]] and [[organisational theory|organizational theory]], [[policy analysis]], [[education]], [[sociology]], [[social anthropology]], and [[social change]].<ref name=Potter2006>{{cite journal|author=Potter, C.|year=2006 |title=Psychology and the art of program evaluation| journal=South African Journal of Psychology |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=82HGGFGYR–102|doi=10.1177/008124630603600106 |s2cid=145698028 }}</ref>