Writing Evaluation Questions - Video
August 2025
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In this video, Bonnie walks us through her Top 10 Tips for crafting meaningful, strategic, and actionable evaluation questions. Whether you're new to evaluation or looking to refine your approach, these tips will help you ask the right questions to get the insights you need.
This video draws from some of our most popular articles, including:
How to Write Good Evaluation Questions – A guide to understanding what evaluation questions are and how to write them effectively.
The Art of Writing Evaluation Questions – A deeper dive into phrasing, structure, and the nuances of crafting open-ended, purposeful questions.
Evaluation Question Examples by Type of Evaluation – A helpful resource with real-world examples tailored to different evaluation types.
A transcript of the video is included as text in this article.
An Eval Academy video of Dr. Bonnie Lakusta talking about 10 tips for writing evaluation questions.
Hi Eval Academy Community! We've got a few popular articles on our site about how to write evaluation questions. So, in this video I have summarized those articles by sharing top 10 tips for designing strong evaluation question.
So, tip number one start with a purpose. Before you draft any questions at all, ask yourself why are you evaluating? Is it to improve the program? Or maybe you need to understand client needs better? Defining your purpose will set the foundation for your entire evaluation.
Two, engage project partners. Evaluating isn't a solo sport, and you should not be creating evaluation questions alone. So, involve the program staff, maybe funders, maybe even participants in helping to shape those evaluation questions. This will build buy in as well and ensure that your evaluation questions are relevant.
Number three, go high level. Evaluation questions are not the same as survey questions. They are big picture and strategic. Think how effective was the program in achieving its intended outcomes rather than were you satisfied with the workshop? Satisfaction is relatively easy to measure, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Evaluation questions go deeper. They ask about outcomes and barriers and unintended consequences and how the program fits into a broader system.
Be open ended. Open ended questions invite exploration. So instead of asking did the program work? Ask how the program influenced participant behavior. Yes/No questions will limit your findings. So, I challenge you to review your evaluation questions and if any can be answered with a yes or a no, see if you can rewrite them.
Number five, use flexible phrasing. One of the articles on Eval Academy offers some examples of introductory phrases, things like in what ways or what factors contributed to what extent? This type of phrasing will help you explore complexity.
Number six, focus on learning, not just proving. Instead of trying to prove success, ask questions that will genuinely help you learn about it. So, for example, what worked well and what didn't will lead to more useful insights than simply asking did we achieve our outcomes?
Seven, explore context. Programs generally don't work the same for everyone everywhere. Asking for whom did the program work best? Or how did different settings affect our outcomes? Will help you uncover some equity issues and contextual factors that matter.
Eight, examine systems and root causes. Don't just ask what happened but ask why. Ask questions that explore systems, barriers and enablers, for example what structural factors influenced success? This system level approach may lead to more actionable insights.
Number nine, limit your list. It is tempting to ask everything and once you get brainstorming evaluation questions, it is really easy to get carried away. But generally, less is more. A good rule of thumb is to aim for around five core questions. You can always add sub questions to explore specific areas without overwhelming your evaluation.
And number ten, don't rush. Good questions take time. Draft them, discuss them, revise them, then discuss them again. Better to spend a little extra time getting your questions right than to conduct an entire evaluation that answers questions that don't matter.
So those are my top 10 tips for great evaluation questions. I hope that you found them helpful.