{"id":190,"date":"2025-10-03T15:19:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T19:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/?post_type=chapter&p=190"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:38:40","slug":"6-2-introduction","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/chapter\/6-2-introduction\/","title":{"raw":"6.2 Introduction","rendered":"6.2 Introduction"},"content":{"raw":"Evaluators analyze and assess all kinds of objects such as products, projects, programs, and policies. For brevity, all these objects are called interventions<\/em>. What these interventions have in common is that they are all purposeful, that is, they are designed and implemented with the intention of accomplishing some goals or objectives. Interventions are always situated in a context. For our purposes, contexts include both human and natural systems.\r\n\r\nAs a first step in defining an intervention, the evaluator needs to have a good understanding of the object of analysis; this understanding needs to be shared with a diversity of actors who have an interest in the intervention and in the evaluation. Building models, such as causal models and logic models, helps clarify what the intervention is about and how it is supposed to have an impact.\r\n\r\nLogic models are essential for defining an intervention, but they are equally valuable for engaging different actors in sharing their perspectives on the intervention and helping to define the focus of the evaluation. The creation of a logic model is typically an exercise that involves various parties, either in its conceptualization or validation. The evaluator should not view this phase as a one-person responsibility, but rather as an engaging process that fosters a shared understanding of the intervention, builds trust, and collectively orients the next steps of the evaluation project. For these reasons, some evaluators have been exploring non-linear and more creative visual representations and metaphors that are better aligned with local cultures (Lambert et al., 2024).\r\n\r\nWhen reading different evaluation articles and manuals, you will encounter many different terms. These include logic model, operational model, theory of change, program theory, and change model, among others. Each term represents the intervention, but with a slightly different focus. This section reviews how to build a causal model and a logic model then discusses how they are linked. It also briefly presents system mapping.","rendered":"

Evaluators analyze and assess all kinds of objects such as products, projects, programs, and policies. For brevity, all these objects are called interventions<\/em>. What these interventions have in common is that they are all purposeful, that is, they are designed and implemented with the intention of accomplishing some goals or objectives. Interventions are always situated in a context. For our purposes, contexts include both human and natural systems.<\/p>\n

As a first step in defining an intervention, the evaluator needs to have a good understanding of the object of analysis; this understanding needs to be shared with a diversity of actors who have an interest in the intervention and in the evaluation. Building models, such as causal models and logic models, helps clarify what the intervention is about and how it is supposed to have an impact.<\/p>\n

Logic models are essential for defining an intervention, but they are equally valuable for engaging different actors in sharing their perspectives on the intervention and helping to define the focus of the evaluation. The creation of a logic model is typically an exercise that involves various parties, either in its conceptualization or validation. The evaluator should not view this phase as a one-person responsibility, but rather as an engaging process that fosters a shared understanding of the intervention, builds trust, and collectively orients the next steps of the evaluation project. For these reasons, some evaluators have been exploring non-linear and more creative visual representations and metaphors that are better aligned with local cultures (Lambert et al., 2024).<\/p>\n

When reading different evaluation articles and manuals, you will encounter many different terms. These include logic model, operational model, theory of change, program theory, and change model, among others. Each term represents the intervention, but with a slightly different focus. This section reviews how to build a causal model and a logic model then discusses how they are linked. It also briefly presents system mapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[49],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-190","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":186,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/190\/revisions\/599"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/186"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/190\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}