Abstract:

Educational projects and programs are expected to bring long term impacts for a target group. The results are usually not visible immediately after the education or training but rather need more time and effort to identify and assess the benefits of education and training in the long term. Various evaluation methods – both quantitative and qualitative - are used for finding results and impacts of educational trainings and programs.

This paper brings an experience of the authors with using various qualitative methods in evaluating educational and training projects and programs realized mainly within the European Cohesion policy. The paper discusses suitability, usability and limitations of several qualitative evaluation methods like the Most Significant Change, Case Studies, Outcome Harvesting, and others. Main pros and cons of the qualitative methods are also mentioned. Our practical experience with the above mentioned methods can serve as a guide or recommendation for education providers in setting up a framework for evaluation of realized educational and training projects and programs.

Keywords:

Evaluation, qualitative methods, educational projects and programs, comparative study.