Chapter 10: Continuous Quality Improvement 263Continuous Quality
Improvement
Evaluation is most simply defined as the “systematic investigation
of merit or worth” (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational
Evaluation, 1994, p. 3). The dominant question is typically whether
the program is achieving the intended results. Is the coaching actually
fulfilling its purposes?
The idea of evaluation is to collect and integrate multiple sources
of data with the intent of obtaining the larger picture of effectiveness
and intended outcomes rather than what can be obtained from only
one source of information (Lawrenz & Huffman, 2002). To evaluate
the impact of coaching, appropriate data sources should include case
studies, semi-structured interviews, surveys, observation of skills
and practice and, ultimately, client outcomes. As stated by both
Guskey (1998) and Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2006), while
evaluation cannot affirmatively establish causation it does provide
evidence of program effectiveness.