Читать книгу An Introduction to Evaluation - Chris Fox - Страница 85

 The TOC was first developed as an evaluation tool to use in complex social programmes and it evolved into a useful planning and evaluation approach.

 Planning-wise, the TOC consists of stating the desired (long-term) change based on a number of assumptions that hypothesise, project or calculate how change can be enabled.

 As an approach the TOC’s aim is to arrive at a measurable description of the expected change, and this is the link between TOC and evaluation.

 Theory-based evaluations are either carried out on programmes that have theories of change in place, or begin by trying to reconstruct a theory of change for a programme in order to increase the evaluation’s focus.

 The TOC of a programme can either be developed before the start of the programme (prospective) or ‘reconstructed’ by the evaluator (retrospective). The different situations will dictate the way in which a TOC will be applied and used.