Public Administration ETDs

John R. Lyons

Publication Date

7-21-1975

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether formal program evaluation can be applied to the Federal Aid in Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program, as it now exists, to provide the basis for improved Program management and performance. If it is not possible at present to use program evaluation effectively as a tool of management, then the reasons must be ascertained to discern where to begin and how to proceed to overcome this obstacle to knowing use of Program management actions. A literature search confirmed that, indeed, there are failures of program evaluation applications to result in improved program performance. The fundamental reasons for these failures were identified from the literature of public administration and program evaluation using care to exlude those apparent reasons which are only symptoms of failure. Using this knowledge, a questionnaire was designed and employed to examine the Federal Aid Program and the program management system for the presence of factors known to limit or preclude program evaluation success. Analysis of the Federal Aid Supervisors' responses to the questionnaire showed that the Federal Aid Program is not evaluable at present. This is because there was found to be a lack of uniformity on the understanding of the Program basis and on its administration among Regions, the definition of the Program is not sufficient to permit the measurements required for evaluation, and Program assumptions linking actions and outcomes are not specified or testable as causal hypotheses. The immediate factors limiting evaluation were found to be in the Federal Aid Program itself. Consequently, program evaluation must start with program planning to develop the program specification, measurement capability, and comparative processes required to use program evaluation effectively as a tool of management. The use of the systems approach is recommended for evaluation of the Federal Aid Program to assure balanced attention to all of the aspects of the Program necessary to provide a basis for knowing Program management and performance improvement.

Degree Name

Public Administration

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

School of Public Administration

First Committee Member (Chair)

Albert H. Rosenthal

Second Committee Member

Leonard Arnold Stitelman

Third Committee Member

Vladmir V. Berniklau

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

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