Evaluation of welfare reform. A framework for addressing the urgent and the important

Assessing the effects of changes still emerging under welfare reform and its overarching policy of devolution presents a challenge to evaluators. Given such features as time limits and benefits caps that vary widely across states and communities, it is necessary not only to attend to urgent issues of immediate relevance for individuals on public assistance but also to focus on important long-term analyses of this complex intergovernmental set of policies. The authors present a conceptual framework based on evaluation utilization and illustrate it with research questions under the rubric of welfare reform. The approach crosses three types of utilization--conceptual, instrumental, and political--with two utilization settings--policy adoption and program implementation. Evaluation strategies are linked to the utilization framework and illustrated with examples from studies of welfare reform. In the aggregate, evaluation studies represent a reasonable range of urgent and important issues across most utilization types and settings.