Abstract:
The widespread service delivery protests in South Africa call for the effectiveness
of the public sector in service delivery. Monitoring and evaluation are essential
in ensuring such effectiveness is achieved. Process evaluation in the public sector
could be an indispensable intervention for the attainment of service delivery goals.
This article is an explication of process evaluation methods from studies involving
several frameworks for process evaluations. The article reviews the methodologies
and frameworks of several studies on process evaluation. These frameworks include
the systematic structured observation technique, intervention driven framework,
logic model and the key components profile. It is important to note that these
frameworks are pivotal in the implementation of process evaluations. These
frameworks depict process evaluation as a vital adjunct to outcome evaluation and
it is argued that process evaluation is the prerequisite and a necessary ingredient
for effective and efficient programming. A key lesson learnt is the adoption of a
comprehensive evaluation methodology which is useful in process evaluation for
cross validation purposes and also for ensuring the validity and reliability of process
evaluation techniques, procedures and results. While several methodological
challenges confront process evaluation these may be overcome by the employment
of a comprehensive evaluation methodology.
