Evaluation studies have been plagued by major problems including compromised methodological rigor, discovery of unanticipated consequences, and nonutilization of findings. Many of these problems occur because basic research methods are not designed to take account of the organizational context within which eualuation research, as applied research, is conducted. The authors propose and outline steps in an interactive strategy for designing, mounting, carrying out, and reporting evaluation studies. The steps include identifying evaluation audiences, grounding and negotiating evaluation designs, involving practitioners in operationalizing variables and developing data collection instruments, and providing oral feedback of results to evaluation audiences. Recognizing the added costs required in implementing the proposed strategy, the authors call for a comparative cost-benefit study to assess the relative costs and benefits of mounting evaluation studies with and without the interactive strategy.
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