Evaluating Performance in a CAS

In 1998, Thomas Berkas and Glenda Eoyang were working with the Search Institute evaluating community-based programs for youth development. We knew that both communities and youth were too complex to be captured by traditional evaluation methods. We also knew that the emerging field of complexity science might hold a key to a more effective and responsive monitoring and evaluation system.

This paper was our first attempt to explore this intersection of complexity and evaluation. In the subsequent decades, many scholars and practitioners, including us, have begun where this paper ended and developed ingenious methods for complex evaluation.

Even so, the field continues to emerge and we, and others, explore innovative and effective evaluation methods. Our work began here.

Related Resources

June 5, 2014 Glenda Eoyang explores four questions, relative to training ROI: What? is the process of learning in a complex system? What? is the value of learning in a complex system? So what? is the return on investment? Now what? can you do to realize ROI?
December 4, 2014 What? challenges are woven into assessing complex learning? So what? evidence of those patterns affects HSD Professional Certification? Now what? have we done to respond? And Now what? questions remain?
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