Program Monitoring and Evaluation

Research involves aspects of both program monitoring and evaluation. The difference between the approaches to program evaluation and research is not as distinct as the difference between those of program monitoring and research. Assessing whether an intervention is effective requires program monitoring, evaluation and research, for reasons including those below:

• The ongoing monitoring of a program does not put forth a basis for comparison.
• Assessing the value of a program through evaluation does not necessarily provide relational comparisons or differences in processes or outcomes across groups, times or places.

The complete array of activities from collecting data, transforming the data into information and the process of establishing relationships are the basic tenets of research. However, conditions will exist where the line between these processes may be blurred.