Bringing together data into an overall conclusion and judgement is important for individual evaluations and also when summarising evidence from multiple evaluations.
Tasks
1. Synthesise data from a single evaluation
An evaluation needs to produce an overall judgement of merit or worth, bringing together data in terms of the agreed evaluative criteria and standards.
2. Synthesise data across evaluations
Data from multiple evaluations can also be synthesised to produce an overall judgement about ‘what works’ or ‘what works for whom in what circumstances’.
It is often useful for an evaluation to be explicit about the extent to which its findings can be generalised or how they might be appropriately translated to new sites and situations.