The Reciprocal Relationship between Implementation Theory and Program Theory in Assisting Program Design and Decision-Making

Authors

  • Ralph Renger University of North Dakota Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA
  • Gabriele Bartel Das Land Rheinland-Pfalz Ludwigshafen, Germany
  • Jirina Foltysova University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.028.002

Abstract

The focus of this article is how Theory Driven Evaluation (TDE) and two of its central tenets—program theory and implementation theory—can be simultaneously used to inform and assist programmatic decision-making. The article argues there is a paucity of evaluation literature demonstrating how program theory can be beneficial to the design and interpretation of implementation theory. A case example is used to illustrate the importance of program theory in developing and interpreting implementation theory.

Downloads

Published

2013-04-20

How to Cite

Renger, R., Bartel, G., & Foltysova, J. (2013). The Reciprocal Relationship between Implementation Theory and Program Theory in Assisting Program Design and Decision-Making. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 28(1), 27–41. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.028.002

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 1 (2013): Spring

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Ralph Renger, Gabriele Bartel, Jirina Foltysova

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.