07/27/2026
By Zakkiyya Witherspoon

The School of Education invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Abeer Hakouz entitled, “Empowering Change: Evaluating School Improvement Planning and Building Evaluation Capacity Through Empowerment Evaluation.”

Candidate: Abeer Hakouz
Degree: Doctoral in Leadership: Research & Evaluation in Education
Defense Date: Monday, August 10, 2026
Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Coburn Room 275 and via Zoom
Thesis/Dissertation Title: “Empowering Change: Evaluating School Improvement Planning and Building Evaluation Capacity Through Empowerment Evaluation”

Dissertation Committee

  • Dissertation Supervisor: Jill Hendrickson, Ph.D., Associate Dean, School of Graduate Studies; Co-Director, Center for Program Evaluation, University of Massachusetts Lowel
  • Hilary Lustick, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Jack Schneider, Ph.D., Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor, College of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Abstract
In response to growing accountability and improvement demands in pre-K–12 education, scholars and practitioners have shown increased interest in school-based evaluation, participatory evaluation, and evaluation capacity building as supports for school improvement planning (SIP) and evidence-informed decision-making. Yet empirical research on using participatory evaluation approaches and developing evaluation capacity within pre-K–12 SIP remains limited. This dissertation presents research on evaluation conducted at a Title I school in an urban district in Massachusetts, United States.

The study included an evaluation component that examined the practices used by members of the school’s Instructional Leadership Team and School Site Council to monitor and evaluate SIP, and the extent to which they perceived those practices as effective. It also included a research component that examined participants’ perceptions of the Three-Step Taking Stock approach to empowerment evaluation, changes in SIP work associated with working with an empowerment evaluator, the perceived contribution of evaluator feedback, and changes in evaluation capacity. A qualitative case study design was used. Data sources included focus groups, meeting observations, end-of-year SIP review surveys, and document analysis of successive SIP versions. The evaluation component was formative and used the Three-Step Taking Stock approach to empowerment evaluation.
Evaluation findings showed that SIP monitoring and evaluation were shaped by the interaction of district SIP structures, school-level conditions, and evaluator-supported activities. District structures, including the shift from an annual SIP cycle to a three-year cycle with quarterly check-ins and a standardized SIP template, created conditions for routine progress monitoring. School-level conditions, including principal leadership, existing data-use routines, collaboration, and trust, shaped how these structures were enacted. Within this context, monitoring became more routinized through quarterly check-ins, collective evidence review, and SIP documentation. Evaluation was less routine and became most visible during the end-of-year SIP review, when participants reflected on year -one progress, rated performance, discussed evidence, and identified future priorities. Participants used multiple forms of evidence, including academic and non-academic data. They defined effective monitoring as practices that kept SIP goals visible through ongoing evidence review, while effective evaluation involved interpreting progress, judging what was working, and identifying evidence-informed future priorities.

Research findings showed that the participants perceived the three-step taking stock approach as useful for strengthening SIP practices rather than replacing them. They valued its participatory structure, stakeholder voice, performance rating and future-priority voting activities, and evaluator facilitation and measurement support. They also identified feasibility concerns related to time, workload, stakeholder participation, public sharing, and material accessibility. Participants associated evaluator-supported activities with clearer SIP goals, action steps, evidence use, and end-of-year evaluation. They also reported growth in evaluation capacity, including clearer distinctions between monitoring and evaluation, and stronger understanding of how evaluation can support continuous improvement. The study suggests that empowerment evaluation can support SIP by making evaluation, stakeholder participation, and future planning more explicit.