Documenting the impact of multisite evaluations on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics field

This chapter discusses the impact that four multisite National Science Foundation (NSF) evaluations had on the broader field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and evaluation. Three approaches were used to investigate the broader impact of these evaluations on the field: (a) a citation analysis, (b) an on-line survey, and (c) surveys and follow-up interviews with NSF project principal investigators (PIs). The results indicate that the four evaluations had at least some impact. In addition, they show that the four efforts had differential impact, generally related to the way each evaluation operated. Evaluations in operation for longer time periods produced more products with more types of dissemination. The most-cited products tended to be instruments and tools. The field influence survey showed that, overall, few NSF PIs had any knowledge of influential evaluations, evaluation publications, or evaluators.