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Nadia Bengo, Kobe University, JapanAbstract
Formative program evaluation analyzes a project’s strengths and weaknesses, draws conclusions, and provides recommendations to achieve intended outcomes. Effective implementation of formative program evaluation strategies includes designing a clear project description, gathering reliable sources, managing information systems to share data, securing financial resources, and improving organizations’ capacity. However, research on formative program evaluation strategies often focuses on output indicators, such as the number of facilities built, student enrollment, or teacher training attendance, rather than identifying corrective actions, challenges, and innovations within the projects. This qualitative document analysis study explores how formative program evaluation strategies used by organizations in two public educational initiatives, (a) the Girls’ Empowerment Project for primary education and (ii) the Youth Village of Success for vulnerable lower secondary students, contribute to organizational learning. The study assesses 82 of 124 digital resources published by the government and stakeholders between January 2023 and September 2024, using social capital theory as an analytical framework. The analysis reveals the following: (i) Project description strategy shares summative data, often disconnected from the students’ socioeconomic and political context. (ii) Sources of information strategy primarily rely on informal conversations with target groups. (iii) Organizations use management and information systems strategy to share public information via social media, especially Facebook and LinkedIn, which limits opportunities to support educational management and policy analysis, safeguard participants’ identities, and enhance the validity of both projects. The findings encourage organizations to reflect on their capacity-building practices and strengthen the connection between educational programs and socioeconomic and political outcomes.
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Conference: ECE2025Stream: Educational policy
This paper is part of the ECE2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Bengo N. (2025) Formative Program Evaluation Strategies: A Reflection on the Girls’ Empowerment Project and Youth Village Project Implementation in Angola ISSN: 2188-1162 The European Conference on Education 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 353-376) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2025.30
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2025.30
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