Program evaluation in mental health care: the transformation of a less appropriate evaluation process into a more appropriate process
Many different forms of program evaluation are used in the field of mental health. In an article in an earlier issue of this journal (Beenackers 1987) we reduced all these forms to a single basic model: a cyclical process of exploration, setting of standards, operationalization, verification and adjustment. In this article we have developed a typology of evaluation processes which fail to conform to that model. In this application the model itself functions as a standard and the evaluation processes which do not conform to this standard are regarded as less appropriate. Finally we show, by means of examples, how a less appropriate evaluation process can be transformed into a more appropriate process which does in fact conform to the described evaluation model.