Teaching Research Institute

The Evaluation Research Group Office (ERGO) consists of a team of evaluators with broad experience and expertise in program and personnel evaluation and research. ERGO has a long and solid history of providing quality evaluation and research for rural and urban and public and private agencies across the state and beyond.

Since its inception, ERGO has contracted with clients across a broad geographic and professional spectrum providing rigorous, client responsive evaluations and needs assessments generating information and evidence on which to make decisions. Key to this is intensive work with clients to clarify, focus, and finalize what it is they want to know and/or be able to do with findings.

"Evaluators are guilty until proven innocent."

- Michael Quinn Patton

"Being an evaluator is not easy. Telling someone you're an evaluator is like telling them that you're a cross between a proctologist and an IRS auditor."

- David Chavis

With these sentiments toward evaluation and evaluators, why would anyone willingly choose to be an evaluator? The reasons are many. Certainly the work has been infinitely varied and interesting, taking us from the smallest of rural Oregon towns to major urban areas, from early childhood education through adult education, and a host of different clients.

Service Areas

• Program Evaluation
• Evaluation and Research Design, Methodology, and Analysis
• Large and Small Scale Survey Studies
• Focus Groups
• Using Data to Inform and Improve Practice
• Applied Research and Development
• Measures / Instrument Development
• Grant Writing
• Report and Presentation Development

What clients say about ERGO...

"[Your] services have been professional and, to our benefit, formative. [We] have collaborated very well to build the structure of practice and assessment together. [You are] professional and accommodating in your approach to us as a client, and adaptable and willing to work within and around the operation of our organization, which has resulted in a relatively non-disruptive assessment process."
-School Administrator and Program Liaison

"We like that you guys aren't stuffy."
-Foundation Program Coordinator

Clients

Local governments & municipalities and their sub-agencies

Not-for-profit organizations

For profit organizations and corporations

ERGO

• Evaluates or supports the evaluation of local programs and projects.
• Provides training and technical assistance to help cities, counties, and agencies to conduct evaluations, research, data base development, and analyses.

School districts in Oregon

ERGO

• Supports the development and use of improvement goals and objectives.
• Analyzes school, district, and state data for individual school districts.
• Supports the evaluation of school programs within districts.
• Provides training and technical assistance to help districts and schools conduct their own evaluations, research, data base development, and analyses.

Recent Publications

Contact

Teaching Research Institute (503)838-8391 | or e-mail: triweb@wou.edu