Creating a Sense of Community Through Empowerment Evaluation of an Academic Program
Asil Ali Özdoğru
In the evaluation of an academic program, students and faculty, as major groups of stakeholders, can perform various phases of evaluation. This study demonstrates a case example of a graduate program utilizing its constituents in the planning and implementation steps of its evaluation. The program accomplished a valid and responsive evaluation as a result of the collaborative project between students and faculty. Triangulation of different perspectives and experiences provided a rich array of information in the identification of major program components, development of essential outcome measures, and interpretation of evaluation results. This collaborative approach also resulted in the strengthening of sense of community among program members by enhancing community knowledge and ownership. Findings and experiences from this participatory evaluation process will be shared to exemplify the lessons learned and best practices for academic program evaluation from an empowerment perspective.
Keywords: Empowerment evaluation, program evaluation, sense of community
Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2007, November). Creating a sense of community through empowerment evaluation of an academic program. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Asil Ali Özdoğru
Keywords: Empowerment evaluation, program evaluation, sense of community
Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2007, November). Creating a sense of community through empowerment evaluation of an academic program. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, Baltimore, MD, USA.
