CAPE Background
The
CAPE suite of resources, tools, and professional development
are provided by the SERVE Center at the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro. The development of the
CAPE framework has been an evolving process that began
in the mid 1990’s as part of the professional
development, technical assistance, and resources provided
by the Southeast Initiatives Regional Technology in
Education Consortium (SEIR*TEC). Like other research
and development organizations, SERVE has conducted numerous
external evaluations for educational projects and programs
conducted by state education agencies, school districts,
and universities. CAPE is unique in that it focuses
on helping educators learn how to plan and conduct their
own evaluations so they can make judgments and interpretations
about their projects and use data to make informed decisions.
CAPE works to develop constituents’ abilities
to plan, implement, and evaluate their own projects
based on the belief that “the more we can involve
program practitioners as the judges of their own programs,
the more potent will be the evaluation in bringing about
program improvement” (Cousins, 2005, p. 205).
CAPE incorporates principles of empowerment evaluation,
an “evaluation approach that aims to increase
the probability of achieving program success by…providing
program stakeholders with tools for assessing the planning,
implementation, and self-evaluation of their program”
(Wandersman, Imm, Chinman, & Kaftarian, 2000).
One of SEIR*TEC’s
major priorities was to assist state education agencies
in planning and evaluating federal technology grant
programs, such as the Technology Literacy Challenge
Fund (TLCF) and the Enhancing Education Through Technology
(EETT) component of No Child Left Behind. As SEIR*TEC
was helping grantees use the framework to evaluate their
TLCF or EETT grants, they studied their own work with
schools, trying to figure out the most effective and
efficient strategies for supporting grantees as they
planned and implemented their evaluations. A key finding
from studying SEIR*TEC’s work is that schools
and districts are better off in the long run if they
not only go through the process of evaluating a specific
grant project, but also develop the capacity for evaluating
any project or program. Another key finding is that
developing capacity requires much more thought and effort
than traditional professional development, technical
assistance, and resources can provide. Thus, a study
of SEIR*TEC’s work with grantees has informed
both the content and the processes of CAPE.
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