Books by Michael Quinn Patton

Michael Quinn Patton's Facilitating Evaluation: Principles in Practice is the first book of its kind to explain in depth and detail how to facilitate evaluation processes with stakeholders, using the author's own stories of his experiences as an evaluation facilitator.

The book that has been a resource and training tool for countless researchers and students has been completely revised in its Fourth Edition with hundreds of new examples and stories illuminating all aspects of qualitative inquiry and now offers more balance between applied research and evaluation.

Incorporating both theory and practice, this text provides students with an essential resource on how to do useful and effective evaluations.

Patton demonstrates that the main failing of most evaluations is a lack of practicality. They fail to be cheap, accurate, attuned to the differences between different programmes or to provide useful, realistic policy alternatives for decision-makers. Patton discusses the major stages of the evaulation process, describing evaluation design, measurement, analysis and reporting. Using his own field and workshop experiences, he provides a new vision of evaluation that emphasizes the elements of feasibility, efficiency, and utility.

This bestselling text reflects the growing use of qualitative techniques in the evaluation process. The author differentiates the qualitative approach in method and philosophy from more traditional quantitative methods and specifies the kinds of evaluation question for which it is most appropriate.