Evaluation

Why Evaluate?

Evaluation is an important part of any programme or process and provides a window into if and how programs achieve their goals. It supports informed decision making about whether to continue, modify, or discontinue a program or project.

Effective evaluation provides the opportunity for learning and improvement. By identifying what worked well and what did not, we can learn from experience and make future improvements.

The evaluation process helps us to be transparent about our outputs and outcomes and provides accountability to beneficiaries, funders and stakeholders and helps us to ensure that limited resources are utilised most efficiently for the greatest possible impact.

Hertfordshire Evaluation Framework

This evaluation guide has been put together to help organisations with limited knowledge and experience of evaluation to understand the steps when building evaluation into project design. The guide has been kept as brief as possible to make it quick and easy to read. Links have been included to other sources of information to signpost you to more in-depth information if needed. The aim of having a Hertfordshire Evaluation Framework for Sport and Physical Activity is to increase the quality of evaluation captured and help you to build the business case for investment in sport and physical activity initiatives. There are many excellent projects taking place within the county but very few are able to demonstrate the impact they are having using credible research methods.

The steps we will take you through are for small scale projects. For larger projects where in-depth evaluation or research is required, we recommend you seek the support of an academic institution or someone with this expertise.

The Sport England Evaluation guide and Sport England Guide to Research documents provide guidance to help you determine what type of research method(s) to adopt for your projects.

Evaluation needs to be considered at the initial planning stages of all projects and not added in as an afterthought. It is difficult to evidence what difference your project has made if you haven’t captured information from participants when they join your programme.

National impact reports

The Sport England website contains national impact reports for a number of programmes such as: School Games, Satellite Clubs and the Community Sport Activation fund. To read the reports, click on the weblink below and scroll down the page to “Evaluation”.

Sport England