Site Visit Standards Revisited: A Framework for Implementation

Abstract

Site visits are common in evaluation plans but there is a dearth of guidance about how to conduct them. This paper revisits site visit standards published by Michael Patton in 2017 and proposes a framework for evaluative site visits. We retrospectively examined documents from a series of site visits for examples of Patton's standards. Through this process, we identified additional standards and organized them into four categories and fourteen standards that can guide evaluation site visits: team competencies and knowledge (interpersonal competence, cultural humility, evaluation competence, methodological competence, subject matter knowledge, site specific knowledge), planning and coordination (project design, resources, data management), engagement (team engagement, sponsor engagement, site engagement), and confounding factors (neutrality, credibility). In the paper, we provide definitions and examples from the case of meeting, and missing, the standards. We encourage others to apply the framework in their contexts and continue the discussion around evaluative site visits.