metaevaluations
Metaevaluations, or meta-evaluations, are systematic assessments of evaluations themselves. They examine the quality, utility, and credibility of evaluation activities—how evaluations are designed, conducted, analyzed, interpreted, and reported—rather than the programs or policies being evaluated. The goal is to improve the quality of evaluations and the use of their findings for decision making. Metaevaluations can be conducted by funders, organizations that commission evaluations, or independent bodies, and they may feed back into standard-setting and capacity building.
Common purposes include judging methodological rigor, appropriateness of designs and data sources, transparency of methods, independence
Challenges include heterogeneity of evaluations, varying reporting quality, access to data, subjectivity in judgments, and resource