Seung Youn (Yonnie) Chyung, a professor of the Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) department in the College of Engineering, recently published a book, “10-Step Evaluation for Training and Performance Improvement (2019).” Her book is written for workforce development and performance improvement professionals (or professionals in the making) who want to learn how to conduct program evaluations for their internal or external clients.
Chyung’s desire to write the book came soon after she started teaching a project-based evaluation class for the OPWL department in 2008. The textbooks available at that time lacked examples and guidance for training and performance improvement professionals. To fill the gap, she developed her own class handouts, which grew over time and became a set of comprehensive guidelines. In 2016, she took a semester-long sabbatical and came back with a 300-page manuscript. She used the manuscript as a textbook in her evaluation class for several semesters to make additional improvements; now the book has been published by Sage.
Chyung’s book walks users through 10 steps to conduct a program evaluation with systematic and systemic approaches by investigating multiple dimensions and triangulating multiple datasets:
- Identify an evaluand
- Identify stakeholders and their needs
- Identify the purpose of evaluation
- Develop a program logic model
- Determine dimensions and importance weighting
- Determine data collection methods
- Develop data collection instruments
- Collect data
- Analyze data with rubrics
- Draw conclusions
Chyung gives special thanks to OPWL students who provided her with motivation and feedback while writing this book.
About the OPWL Program
The Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) program helps prepare students for careers in the areas of instructional design, training and development, e-learning, workplace performance improvement, organization development, program evaluation, and performance consulting.