Contribution Analysis

Theoretical and Practical Challenges and Prospects for Evaluators

Authors

  • Suman Budhwani University of Toronto
  • James C. McDavid University of Victoria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.31121

Keywords:

contribution analysis, program evaluation, theory-based evaluation

Abstract

Contribution analysis (CA) is a theory-based approach that has become widely used in recent years to conduct defensible evaluations of interventions for which determining attribution using existing methodologies can be problematic. This critical review of the literature explores contribution analysis in detail, discussing its methods, the evolution in its epistemological underpinnings to establishing causality, and some methodological challenges that are presented when CA is applied in practice. The study highlights potential adaptations to CA that can improve rigour, and describes areas where further work can strengthen this useful evaluation approach.

Downloads

Published

2017-05-21

How to Cite

Budhwani, S., & McDavid, J. C. (2017). Contribution Analysis: Theoretical and Practical Challenges and Prospects for Evaluators. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 32(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.31121

Issue

Vol. 32 No. 1 (2017): Spring

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2017 Suman Budhwani, James C. McDavid

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors contributing to The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 (CC-BY-NC) license. This licence allows this work to be copied, distributed, remixed, transformed, and built upon for any purpose provided that appropriate attribution is given, a link is provided to the license, and changes made were indicated.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Most read articles by the same author(s)