Program Evaluation
Department of Educational Psychology
Designed For
This certificate program is ideal for UT Austin graduate students interested in evaluating programs, initiatives and interventions in a variety of fields, including:
- Education
- Government and Public Administration
- Healthcare
- Human Development
- Nonprofit Leadership
- Organizational Development
- Psychology
- Public Policy
- Public Health
- Social Work
Career Objective
Graduates with training in program evaluation are well positioned for careers involving:
- Assessment and Accountability
- Continuous Improvement and Quality Assurance
- Educational and Healthcare Research
- Grant-Funded Program Evaluation
- Nonprofit and Government Evaluation
- Program Evaluation
- Policy Analysis
- Research and Evaluation Consulting
- Strategic Planning and Organizational Effectiveness
At a Glance
Program Starts: Fall, Spring, Summer
Length of Program: 12 credit hours
Program Location: On Campus
GRE Required? No
Measure Impact. Drive Improvement.
The Graduate Certificate in Program Evaluation is designed as a stackable credential, allowing UT Austin graduate students to earn a transcript-recognized certificate while working toward a graduate degree. Students in the Quantitative Methods Master’s Program may apply certificate coursework to their degree.
The program prepares students to assess program effectiveness, generate actionable insights and support evidence-based decision-making. Through applied training in evaluation methods, research design, survey methodology and data visualization, students learn how to collect meaningful evidence and translate findings into recommendations that matter.
The certificate emphasizes hands-on learning and real-world application. Students develop practical experience creating evaluation plans, analyzing data, assessing outcomes and presenting results to stakeholders, decision-makers and organizational leaders.
Program Coordinator
Tiffany Whittaker, Professor and Department Chair
Program Overview
How to Apply
The certificate is open exclusively to currently enrolled UT Austin graduate students. Students may apply at any time during their graduate program through a simple approval process. Once accepted, students receive priority enrollment in certificate courses and can complete the certificate alongside their degree requirements. Additional application instructions and forms will be posted soon.
Questions?
Admissions Questions
Contact our graduate coordinator
Program Questions
Contact Tiffany Whittaker
Course Descriptions
Students complete a sequence of courses and applied projects that build competency in evaluation planning, implementation, analysis and reporting.
Program Eval Models and Techniques: Examine the theoretical origins of Program Evaluation, as well as major sub-fields such as Responsive and Decision-Oriented evaluation. Conduct program decompositions in order to deeply understand the constraints, transactions and outcomes of a program, and create proposed evaluation of a program. Explore qualitative research methods that are useful for program evaluation and common quantitative methods and instrumentation, including survey design.
Applied Research Design in Program Evaluation: Discuss in depth the quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods analyses used to conduct program evaluations. Practice communicating complex evaluative ideas, designs and results to program leaders and participants. Develop a large scale evaluation proposal that focuses on the research design methods discussed.
Survey Research Design. Overview of the survey research process. Addresses various topics in survey research within the context of the development of a survey study. Also covers sequence of a survey study, from conceptualization to measurement, administration, data management and analysis, and writing the research report. Issues in quasi-experimental design, sampling, questionnaire construction, administration and the use of computers in survey research are covered within this framework. The relative advantages, disadvantages, and appropriateness of the different modes of survey administration (i.e., face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, mail, internet surveys, and other self-administered questionnaires) for different research questions are also examined.
Data Exploration and Visualization in R. Explore R, an open-source statistical programming platform for data analysis and visualization. Examine the foundational facilities and skills in R programming and how to use the tools to accomplish real-world, reproducible data analysis and visualization.
Faculty
Interested in statistical models with a focus on deriving and evaluating multilevel model extensions and meta-analysis models for educational, behavioral, social and medical science data.
Statistical methods and techniques for meta-analysis with a focus on selective reporting and publication bias, effect size calculations, multilevel modeling
Accepting new students
Interests include the development and dissemination of computerized adaptive testing applications in educational and psychological testing and patient-reported outcome measurements.
Accepting new students
Research interests focus on using Bayesian statistical methods to employ hierarchical linear modeling, specifically working with longitudinal and mediation data.
Studies statistical and computational methods for analyzing psychometric data. Research areas include item response theory, response time modeling, cognitively diagnostic models, computer-adaptive testing, and multimodal analytics of cognitive and be...
Accepting new students
Statistical methods for causal mediation analysis, causal inference with machine learning methods, longitudinal or clustered data analysis, study design (e.g., statistical power analysis)
Accepting new students
My principal methodological research interest deals with the various facets of model specification, including, but not limited to, model comparison/selection and model modification methods. With the use of simulation techniques, I examine the perform...
