Research and Evaluation Consulting (RaECon)
Welcome to the web site for Research and Evaluation Consulting (RaECon), provider of expert consulting services for program evaluation, organization development (including training and credentialing program development/review) and applied social research.
For those unfamiliar with programs and program evaluation, the following commonly accepted definitions may help you understand part of what it is we do…
A program can be thought of as a group of related activities that is intended to achieve one or several objectives. Programs are means-ends relationships that are designed and implemented purposively.
(McDavid & Hawthorn, 2006)
A program evaluation in the typical sense involves the systematic collection and analysis of information about program activities, characteristics, and outcomes, to improve program effectiveness and/or inform decisions about future programming.
(Patton, 1997)
Organization development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s processes, using behavioural-science knowledge.
(Beckhard, 2006)
Much of our organization development work focuses on the advancement of education/training program testing and measurement procedures…
The science of developing educational and psychological tests and measurement procedures has become highly sophisticated and has developed into such a large body of knowledge that it is considered a scientific discipline of inquiry on its own, referred to as psychometrics.
(Suen, 1990)
Tests are designed to measure attributes of people, psychometrics is the science concerned with evaluating the attributes of tests.
(Furr & Bacharach, 2008)
RaECon’s services can range from comprehensive program evaluations, and in-depth organization development work to discrete questionnaires.
