Meta-Evaluation: Experiences in an Accelerated Graduate Nurse Education Program

• Key drivers of program evaluation
• Continuous quality improvement in nursing education
• Using program evaluation outcomes to influence program quality
• Program meta-evaluation as a method to optimize the quality of program evaluation
• Experiences of one school of nursing in using program meta-evaluation

Most schools of nursing are engaged in some form of program evaluation and recognize the potential benefits in using program evaluation outcomes to influence continuous improvement in program quality. A number of factors exist that may negatively influence program evaluation quality and adversely affect the ability to make sound decisions based on program evaluation outcomes. The potential limitations that threaten program evaluation quality underscore the importance of evaluating the evaluation process itself, also known as meta-evaluation. However, there is an absence of discussion in the nursing literature of the importance of program meta-evaluation. This article seeks to address this gap in the nursing literature and illuminate the need for more schools of nursing to engage in the meta-evaluation process. By introducing 1 model of program meta-evaluation and describing our own endeavors in the program meta-evaluation process, we hope to inspire other schools of nursing to consider using a systematic and formalized process to evaluate their own program evaluation processes to ensure that data obtained from program evaluation are of optimal quality to influence sound, data-driven decisions to promote continued quality and excellence in nursing education programs.