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Legislative Program Evaluation: Utilization-Driven Research for Decision Makers
Number 81, Spring 1999 of the "New Directions for Evaluation" Series

From the Editor

R. Kirk Jonas (VA)

Legislative program evaluation (LPE) has an obsession with utilization. Simply stated, legislatures commission evaluations they expect to use. Further, legislators expect evaluation results that are timely, sensible, and comprehensible. Such expectations are not unreasonable. Legislators are, after all, the customers.

Evaluators themselves sometimes complicate matters. Coming from auditing, academic, evaluation, and other professional backgrounds, the evaluators realize that the probability of utilization raises the stakes. Reports that are going to be used must meet a high standard of rigor. Of course, they must also still be timely, sensible, and comprehensible. And there is the rub.

Forty states now have some type of legislative program evaluation function. This volume of New Directions for Evaluation not only overviews the area of LPE, but it demonstrates the tension caused as utility and rigor constantly pull at each other.

Issue Contents

Against the Whim: State Legislatures' Use of Program Evaluation
R. Kirk Jonas

State legislatures increasingly have turned to program evaluation for reliable information in the decision-making process.

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Legislative Utilization of Evaluations
Don Bezruki, Janice Mueller, Karen McKim

Case studies of three reports demonstrate how methodology and the expectation of utilization are connected.

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Lessons Learned from Evaluating the Feasibility of Privatizing Government Services
Robert C. Thomas, Kathy Gookin, Beth Keating, Valerie Whitener

One of the attractive features of privatization is the potential for cost savings, which are not always easily attained or measured.

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Access to Information: The Legislative Advantage
R. Kirk Jonas

Evaluators working under a legislative mandate usually have access to a wide array of information that is often unavailable to others.

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The Use of Systems Modeling in Legislative Program Evaluation
Patrick W. McIntire, Ann S. Glaze

Systems modeling can be used as a tool to evaluate policy effects on multiple, possibly fragmented service delivery units.

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Convergent Policy Analysis
Desmond Saunders-Newton, Gregory J. Rest, Wayne M. Turnage

The use of convergent methods, or triangulation, strengthens studies of complex problems that are not defined with evaluability in mind.

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How Information Technology Changes Delivery of Evaluation: The Florida Government Accountability Report
Gena C. Wade

Florida evaluators have created an Internet encyclopedia as an alternative means of providing legislators with timely information.

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The Nature of Knowledge and Language in the Legislative Arena
Nancy C. Zajano, Shannon S. Lochtefeld

Legislative program evaluation reports must be sensitive to the extraordinary demands on legislators' time and to the oral culture of the legislature.

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The Impact of Term Limits on Legislative Program Evaluation
Rakesh Mohan, Mary Stutzman

Term limits for legislators have been enacted in eighteen states. What effect will they have on legislative program evaluation?

Ordering Information

The publication Legislative Program Evaluation: Utilization-Driven Research for Decision Makers (Number 81, Spring 1999 of the "New Directions for Evaluation" series) is available from:

Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers
350 Sansome Street
San Francisco, CA 94104-1342
(888) 378-2537

Or order through the Jossey-Bass web site.
Ask for series issue EV81.