Process evaluations and monitoring both provide information on how your program is running and whether it is meeting expectations. The key difference is that process evaluations are a one-off activity, while monitoring is ongoing. That means that process evaluations are often more intensive exercises to collect more data and dive deeper into the theory of change. In contrast, ongoing monitoring must not overburden program staff and often tracks just a few high-priority indicators that are critical to program success.
Consider the following questions to help you decide between conducting a process evaluation and building a monitoring system:
1. Are you interested in identifying specific problems or general problems?
Process evaluations typically identify general or systemic problems along the theory of change, whereas monitoring typically identifies specific entities (e.g. service providers or locations)that need more attention.
2. Are you looking to hold program staff accountable?
Both process evaluations and monitoring are implemented for learning – is our program being implemented as planned? If not, at which steps is it breaking down? However, if you are seeking an accountability system, monitoring is better-suited as it is continuous, whereas a process evaluation is a one-time exercise.
3. Do you need ongoing data on how your program is performing?
A process evaluation typically offers a snapshot in time, whereas monitoring involves ongoing data collection and analysis for the entire duration of the program. For example, a process evaluation may do in-depth interviews with program participants on their experiences, whereas a monitoring system might collect data on just a few questions related to beneficiary satisfaction.
4. Do you need comprehensive data?
A process evaluation is typically based on a sample, while monitoring is usually comprehensive. For example, in a teacher training program, you would monitor the training of all teachers (because it is useful to know exactly which teachers did not attend the training), whereas in a process evaluation, you would interview a subset of teachers to understand the reasons why they did not attend the training.