Evaluation and Expert Guidance
Why do we need evaluations and quality assurance?
Evaluation and quality assurance is the key to developing and continuously improving successful programmes. The GCYF established an evaluation and quality assurance unit in 2004. Its staff members cooperate with scholars and researchers, using internal and external evaluation tools to push for ongoing programme, quality, and organisational development.
External evaluation
Almost all GCYF programmes are evaluated externally. One reason why we need to have external evaluations is that our research partners’ findings give our sponsors and supporters an independent assessment of whether and how their investments become effective. Furthermore, external evaluations serve to provide the GCYF with important suggestions on how to further develop its programmes and increase their effectiveness. At the GCYF, each external evaluation is customized to address both the specific goals of a given programme and the interests of our sponsors and partners. The chief principle guiding each evaluation is that of appreciative dialogue, i.e. a dynamic bargaining process involving all parties: children and adolescents, adult mentors, sponsors and partners, researchers, as well as representatives from politics and administration. External evaluations, which are generally designed as formative evaluations, are a learning process for everybody involved and a communication process with everybody involved. Click here for sample evaluations.
Internal quality assurance
At the GCYF, internal quality assurance serves to generate expertise across programmes. This is done by extracting the results from individual programme evaluations and making them useable for the foundation’s other programmes.
In review meetings, representatives from all programme areas and departments use quality criteria to discuss GCYF programmes in terms of their processes, structures, and outcomes. The team of the evaluation unit provides templates for self-evaluation or workshops on quality to support programme managers who wish to measure their success against their self-defined goals.
Foundation wiki
In 2008, the foundation created a customised in-house wiki to serve as an element of knowledge management. It is designed to encourage an exchange of expertise that is accessible for everybody and to stimulate broad cooperation across and beyond established structures of work and thought. Valuable experience is thus stored and circulated.
Evaluation and scientific monitoring
Prof. Dr. Eva Arnold / Dr. Maike Reese
University of Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Barbara Asbrand
IQB - Institute for Quality Development within the Educational Sector
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Baumert
Director, Max Planck Institute for Educational Research, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Ralf Bohnsack
Free University, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Eva Breitenbach / Christine Blome
Centre for Qualitative Evaluation and Social Research
Prof. Dr. Monika Buhl
DIPF - German Institute for International Educational Research
Prof. Dr. María do Mar Castro Varela
IMUF - Research Institute for Migration and Diversity
Prof. Dr. Michael Corsten
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Edelstein
Director emeritus, Max Planck Institute for Educational Research, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Peter Fauser
Friedrich Schiller University, Jena
Dr. Thomas Gericke
German Youth Institute, Halle
Dr. Susanne Gerull / Florian von Rosenberg / Ute Schröder
Centre for Qualitative Evaluation and Social Research
Prof. Dr. Marianne Horstkemper / Dr. Dagmar Killus
University of Potsdam
Prof. Dr. Matthias Jerusalem
Humboldt University, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Iris Nentwig - Gesemann
Alice Salomon University of Applied Science, Berlin
Charlotte Große
KORUS – Communication, Orientation, Systemic
Prof. Dr. Wilfried Hendricks
Technical University, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Heinz Günter Holtappels
University of Dortmund
Dirk Scheffler / Christian Hoffmann
eco-research evaluation consulting training
Prof. Dr. Franz Prüß / Dr. André Richter
Ernst Moritz Arndt University, Greifswald
Prof. Dr. Regina Rätz-Heinisch / Stefan Heeg
Alice Salomon University of Applied Science, Berlin
Dr. Uwe Schmidt
Center for Quality Development and Assurance, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz
Dr. Karsten Speck / Holger Backhaus-Maul
University of Potsdam/ Martin Luther University, Halle
Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Thimm
Evangelical University of Applied Science, Berlin
Dr. habil. Barbara Wegner / Dr. Anneliese Felger-Pärsch
University of Potsdam
Dr. Sabine Knauer
Educationalist
Prof. Dr. Margherita Zander
Fachhochschule Münster
