Abstract:

Educational projects and processes are inevitable part of every human’s life. Besides a natural learning process there are many intentional and organized activities leading to education of people. Those can be educational processes at schools, educational projects and trainings provided by an employer, or vocational trainings and courses based on interest of people.

An important part of every educational project, program or process should be an evaluation investigating how successful the intentional education was. Evaluation of educational projects can be realized by using several evaluation methods and approaches. Every method is based on different type of data and different factors to be considered.

This paper intends to present our experience with using different methods for evaluation of many educational projects and programs. It aims to summarize the suitability of individual evaluation methods and approaches and give an overview of results. Focus will be given on evaluation approach used in our actual research project PERSIST researching on factors influencing adaptability of young adults after they leave children’s homes.

The paper starts with theoretical background on evaluation of educational projects and programs followed by an overview of most used methods and techniques for evaluating both immediate and long-term results of the educational activities. The next part will present types of evaluation methods the authors used in their evaluation praxis including a description of evaluation approach used in project PERSIST. The final part will summarize our experience with every method used and bring some recommendations for other evaluators, teachers and researchers.

Keywords:

Evaluation, project, program, education, children homes.