- Email: [email protected]
Emerging developments in mental health program evaluation
Evaluation andProgram Planning, Vol. 1, pp. 167-168 Pergamon Press. Printed in the U.S.A.
(1978)
0149-7189/78/0401~0167$02.00/0 Copyright 0 1978 Pergamon Press
CAPSULE
Validity 134 pp.,
Issues $3.95
in Evaluation (soft cover).
Research,
edited
BOOK REVIEWS
by Ilene
N. Bernstein.
This book presents a wide ranging but non-comprehensive look at a variety of important validity issues in evaluation. The book serves as an excellent introduction to these issues, but anyone who is interested in an in-depth understanding of any single issue will have to seek out other sources. Fortunately these sources are well referenced in the book. Two of the five chapters will be of interest primarily to those engaged in large-scale evaluation projects. These are the chapters on “Policy Experiments” and “Some Observations on Design Issues in Large-Scale Social Experiments.” Both of these chapters (by Andy B. Anderson and Katherine C. Lyall, respectively) are based on the authors’ experiences in income maintenance experiments. The remaining chapters have applicability to a larger variety of evaluation situations. Robert F. Boruch deals with methods of combining experimental with quasi-experiDecision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, York: The Free Press, 1977, 488pp., $15.95.
Developments New York:
in Mental Health Argold Press, 1977,
Program 513 pp.,
Hills,
California:
Sage Publications,
1976,
mental designs. Duane F. Alwin and Michael J. Sullivan present an enlightening discussion of problems of drawing inference from non-randomized control groups, and Ilene N. Bernstein, George W. Bohrnstedt and Edgar F. Borgatta deal with problems in the generalizability of evaluation research findings. Although the book assumes a reasonable level of technical sophistication on the part of the reader, those without such a background will still get a sense of the types of problems that must be dealt with when considering the validity of evaluative research. The book is not merely one of the many restatements of established principles of research or quasi-experimental design. Rather, it touches on many important issues which are extensions and modifications of the more well-known principles.
Choice,
and Commitment,
Irving
L. Janis
and Leon
Mann.
New
search findings in the field of decision making. The final section deals with methods of intervention to change opinion. Evaluators and planners who wish to make use of the information in this book will have to do a good deal of transposing of principles and recommended practices to their particular situations. Another drawback is that the book focuses on psychological aspects of decision making, rather than decision making as part of organizational dynamics. On the other hand, in-depth knowledge of how people make decisions can be an important asset to many people who are involved in evaluative or planning endeavis an excellent and comprehensive ors, and this book source of information on that topic.
Although this book does not deal explicitly with evaluative or planning processes, it contains valuable information for those evaluators and planners who take seriously advice about helping trapped administrators, and who believe that understanding political and organizational dynamics are prerequisite to conducting effective planning and eviluation. The book is a comprehensive presentation of the literature on how decisions are made by individuals. After an initial review and orientation which concerns sources of errors in decision making, the book comprises three major parts. The first is a discussion of the cognitive processes which are involved in decision making. This section presents the reader with theories as to how and why people arrive at decisions. The next section deals with reEmerging Landsberg.
Beverly
Evaluation, $4.95.
edited
by William
Neigher,
Roni J. Hammer,
and Gerald
conference” in vocative description of an “accountability 1980, held for a federally funded community mental health center to report to the staff and governing board of the Health Systems Agency for the center’s health service area. Carol Weiss’s chapter is an articulate discussion of three means by which evaluation is political: the political basis for implementation of the program, the actors and considerations entering into decision making, and the political assumptions implicit in the design and conduct of the evaluation itself. Paul Binner examines practical implications of two methods of cost analysis, cost per day and cost per patient discharged, and proposes a third method which avoids pitfalls encountered in the first two.
This book is made up of the proceedings of an HEWNIMH Region II Program Evaluation Conference (May 1976). The contents reflect the new requirements for evaluation mandated by the 1975 Community Mental Health Center Amendment (P.L. 94-63) and includes chapters on outcome studies, utilization review, problem-oriented medical records, needs assessment studies, consumer feedback studies, and citizen participation in program evaluation. More general issues in evaluation are dealt with in chapters on the impact of evaluation on management and on the politics of implementation. Evaluators and planners will find especially interesting James W. Stockdill’s presentation on “The Future Role of Evaluation in Mental Health,” in which he provides a pro167
(1978)
0149-7189/78/0401~0167$02.00/0 Copyright 0 1978 Pergamon Press
CAPSULE
Validity 134 pp.,
Issues $3.95
in Evaluation (soft cover).
Research,
edited
BOOK REVIEWS
by Ilene
N. Bernstein.
This book presents a wide ranging but non-comprehensive look at a variety of important validity issues in evaluation. The book serves as an excellent introduction to these issues, but anyone who is interested in an in-depth understanding of any single issue will have to seek out other sources. Fortunately these sources are well referenced in the book. Two of the five chapters will be of interest primarily to those engaged in large-scale evaluation projects. These are the chapters on “Policy Experiments” and “Some Observations on Design Issues in Large-Scale Social Experiments.” Both of these chapters (by Andy B. Anderson and Katherine C. Lyall, respectively) are based on the authors’ experiences in income maintenance experiments. The remaining chapters have applicability to a larger variety of evaluation situations. Robert F. Boruch deals with methods of combining experimental with quasi-experiDecision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, York: The Free Press, 1977, 488pp., $15.95.
Developments New York:
in Mental Health Argold Press, 1977,
Program 513 pp.,
Hills,
California:
Sage Publications,
1976,
mental designs. Duane F. Alwin and Michael J. Sullivan present an enlightening discussion of problems of drawing inference from non-randomized control groups, and Ilene N. Bernstein, George W. Bohrnstedt and Edgar F. Borgatta deal with problems in the generalizability of evaluation research findings. Although the book assumes a reasonable level of technical sophistication on the part of the reader, those without such a background will still get a sense of the types of problems that must be dealt with when considering the validity of evaluative research. The book is not merely one of the many restatements of established principles of research or quasi-experimental design. Rather, it touches on many important issues which are extensions and modifications of the more well-known principles.
Choice,
and Commitment,
Irving
L. Janis
and Leon
Mann.
New
search findings in the field of decision making. The final section deals with methods of intervention to change opinion. Evaluators and planners who wish to make use of the information in this book will have to do a good deal of transposing of principles and recommended practices to their particular situations. Another drawback is that the book focuses on psychological aspects of decision making, rather than decision making as part of organizational dynamics. On the other hand, in-depth knowledge of how people make decisions can be an important asset to many people who are involved in evaluative or planning endeavis an excellent and comprehensive ors, and this book source of information on that topic.
Although this book does not deal explicitly with evaluative or planning processes, it contains valuable information for those evaluators and planners who take seriously advice about helping trapped administrators, and who believe that understanding political and organizational dynamics are prerequisite to conducting effective planning and eviluation. The book is a comprehensive presentation of the literature on how decisions are made by individuals. After an initial review and orientation which concerns sources of errors in decision making, the book comprises three major parts. The first is a discussion of the cognitive processes which are involved in decision making. This section presents the reader with theories as to how and why people arrive at decisions. The next section deals with reEmerging Landsberg.
Beverly
Evaluation, $4.95.
edited
by William
Neigher,
Roni J. Hammer,
and Gerald
conference” in vocative description of an “accountability 1980, held for a federally funded community mental health center to report to the staff and governing board of the Health Systems Agency for the center’s health service area. Carol Weiss’s chapter is an articulate discussion of three means by which evaluation is political: the political basis for implementation of the program, the actors and considerations entering into decision making, and the political assumptions implicit in the design and conduct of the evaluation itself. Paul Binner examines practical implications of two methods of cost analysis, cost per day and cost per patient discharged, and proposes a third method which avoids pitfalls encountered in the first two.
This book is made up of the proceedings of an HEWNIMH Region II Program Evaluation Conference (May 1976). The contents reflect the new requirements for evaluation mandated by the 1975 Community Mental Health Center Amendment (P.L. 94-63) and includes chapters on outcome studies, utilization review, problem-oriented medical records, needs assessment studies, consumer feedback studies, and citizen participation in program evaluation. More general issues in evaluation are dealt with in chapters on the impact of evaluation on management and on the politics of implementation. Evaluators and planners will find especially interesting James W. Stockdill’s presentation on “The Future Role of Evaluation in Mental Health,” in which he provides a pro167